We've got mail: e-mail makes school communications safe and easy.

We've got mail: e-mail makes school communications safe and easy. LIKE THE BUSINESS WORLD, schools such as Red Clay (Del.) SchoolDistrict count on e-mail to communicate. "It's instantaneous.It's the best way to go," says Judith Conway, instructionaltechnology There are two types of instructional technology: those with a systems approach, and those focusing on sensory technologies.The definition of instructional technology prepared by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) Definitions and Terminology coach in the district. Also in Delaware, anyone anyplace an��y��place?adv.To, in, or at any place; anywhere. See Usage Note at everyplace.Adv. 1. anyplace - at or in or to any place; "you can find this food anywhere"; (`anyplace' is used informally for `anywhere')anywhere can sign up to receive CSD CSD Commission on Sustainable DevelopmentCSD Serbian Dinar (ISO currency code)CSD Christopher Street DayCSD Circuit Switched Data (Sprint)CSD Computer Science DepartmentCSD Community School District E-News, the Christina School District's e-mail newsletter. Withtight budgets, e-mail is a cost-effective way to deliver news becausethere are no postage or hard-copy production costs, reports WendyLapham, the district's public information officer. When three students in the Oswego (Ill.) Community Unit SchoolDistrict and their mother were found murdered in June about 20 milesfrom their home, Superintendent David L. Behlow activated an emergencyinstant alert system that includes e-mail to immediately notify thedistrict's nearly 2,000 staff members. And in Saginaw (Mich.) Public Schools, where about a half-millione-mail messages come in every day, administrators use a firewallprovided by Barracuda Networks Barracuda Networks, Inc. is a privately held company providing firewall products to block e-mail spam, viruses, spyware, load balancing and instant messaging software.Barracuda Networks was established in 2002[1] , a security protection service, to blockpornography, spam and other inappropriate messages. About 5,000 of thee-mails, of 1 percent, which are authentic are cleared to go through,keeping students productive and safe from pornography and otherinappropriate sites, says Kyle Warner, the district's manager ofnetwork services. In ways like these, for communication internally and externally onadministrative and academic matters alike, school districts across thecountry are increasingly using e-mail to deliver messages to teachersand other staff, students and the outside community--and to hear fromthem as well. "I probably get 75 to 100 e-mails a day and I respondto them. I used to get that many phone calls in a day. I don't getmany phone calls now. It's interesting how the world haschanged," says Randy Dozier Dozier may be:People: Gwen Dozier, singer James L. Dozier, US Army general James C. Dozier, Medal of Honor Recipient Kimberly Dozier, CBS News correspondent Lamont Dozier, musician Dozier, Alabama, a town in the United States , superintendent of the GeorgetownCounty (S.C.) School District. Group Mailings One advantage of e-mail for administrators is being able to reachselected groups of people at the same time with a consistent message. Inthe Red Clay district, all school principals are on a single list,"so with one e-mail, you can reach all of them," Conway says. Similarly, in Georgetown County it's broken down intodifferent categories. "We can do group e-mails to principals, otheradministrators, teachers, assistants, or all our 1,600 employees,"Dozier says. "For a rural district we're probably on thecutting edge." In many districts, administrators and teachers use e-mail tocommunicate externally as well as internally. Red Clay district teachersuse it to communicate with parents on "run-of-the-mill"matters, such as parent meetings and other class activities, saysConway. "That's not to say teachers don't call parents whenthey have to, because there are some issues where e-mail is notappropriate and they really need to talk to the parent. But for routinestuff, like providing school schedules and other basic information,e-mail is used heavily in teacher-parent communication," she says. One anonymous parent who e-mails teachers and administrators in herdaughter's New York school New York schoolPainters who participated in the development of contemporary art, particularly Abstract Expressionism, in or around New York City in the 1940s and '50s. says an advantage is that it creates awritten record of communication. "It's harder for districts tosay things such as they didn't get the voice mail," sheasserts. "It seems like the teachers Ideal with all have laptops andanswer questions throughout the day in e-mail. It's been reallytremendous, and I believe it also saves teachers meetings and in-persontime with parents," the mother says. In the Christina district, meanwhile, about 4,500 people havesubscribed to the district's free e-mail See Internet e-mail service. newsletter. Most users areparents, but there are other community members who just want to keepupdated on what's going on What's Going On is a record by American soul singer Marvin Gaye. Released on May 21, 1971 (see 1971 in music), What's Going On reflected the beginning of a new trend in soul music. in the district, says Lapham. Issued at least monthly and more frequently as events dictate, andusually in full color with photographs, CSD E-News is a mix of hard newsabout relevant developments in the district and state government as wellas features about what's going on with students in school, Laphamsays. A June issue reported how one elementary school's students wona T-shirt design and logo contest. Another in May reported how statepolice and school officials worked together to charge a seventh-gradestudent in a case involving a threatening note at a middle school. Christina administrators also use the e-mail newsletter to quicklyalert parents and other community members about school closings becauseof power outages This is a list of famous wide-scale power outages. 1965The Northeast Blackout of 1965 on November 9, 1965. 1977The infamous New York City Blackout of July 13-14, 1977, resulted in looting and rioting. or adverse weather. Lapham says some subscribers haveasked to receive CSD E-News at their worksite e-mail addresses See Internet address. e-mail address - electronic mail address becausethat's where they check e-mail most frequently. The district is encouraging more people to subscribe by postinginformation about it on its Web site. "The electronic delivery ofinformation is an efficient way for us to get information out and toreach thousands of people we never could afford to reach throughtraditional direct mail," Lapham says. Quick Reach Whether it's no power or bad weather or something worse, beingable to reach key audiences quickly when it is urgent to do so,particularly when the safety of children is involved, is a key benefitthat e-mail provides to district administrators. "The number oneconcern that administration and staff have is the safety of the childrenin the schools," says Behlow. Although the murders of the three Oswego children--two fromelementary schools elementary school:see school. and one a junior high student--and their motheroccurred in June off school grounds (their father subsequently wasarrested and charged with the crime), Behlow felt it was essential thatthe district's staff know what happened. To notify them, he usedthe Honeywell Instant Alert system, which includes e-mail as well asphone, cell phone, pager and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) A handheld computer for managing contacts, appointments and tasks. It typically includes a name and address database, calendar, to-do list and note taker, which are the functions in a personal information manager (see PIM). formats. "In the old days, wemight have done it through a phone tree or an e-mail blast, but therewould be no consistency in the content of the message and no record ofwhether it was received," Behlow says. "In a sensitive oremergency situation, we need something else." The district did not e-mail anything about the murders to parentsbut posted information on its Web site about counseling that wasavailable. E-mail is a common instructional tool in many classrooms. Becauseit is primarily a written form of communication, it is a "wonderfulvehicle" for improving students' writing skills, says Conway. It also can motivate students in projects that require them tocommunicate with students in other classrooms or even in other regionsof the country, Conway says. One benefit is the opportunity it offers tobreak down prejudices that some students might have. When communicatingby e-mail, questions of race, age, gender and looks blur. A big issue for administrators is protecting their e-mail systemsagainst inappropriate uses--guarding against what goes out and whatcomes in. "The system is there and you can use it. Just use it in thecorrect way, for instruction and information," Dozier says he tellshis staff, particularly teachers. "Using it for shopping or tocheck your e-mail at home doesn't sound like a big issue, but whenyou're doing it during the day and taking away from instructionaltime, it's a problem for me." He also hopes students are using e-mail for educational purposes.Somebody in the district's technology office tries to monitor whatstudents are doing and if they're on a site they shouldn't beon, they inform Dozier, who puts a stop to it. Security for Students Warner says the Saginaw district provides e-mail accounts e-mail accountn → cuenta de correofor allits 10,000 students and 1,500 staff members. But while administratorswanted even the youngest students to have e-mail access forinstructional purposes, there was concern that administratorscouldn't guarantee that some of the worst spam would not show up intheir accounts, Warner says. So the district began using the Barracuda barracuda,slender, elongated fish of tropical seas. Barracudas have long snouts and projecting lower jaws armed with large, sharp-edged teeth. They are ferocious, striking at anything that gleams, and are considered excellent game fishes. Spam Firewall to blockall inbound e-mail to students in pre-K5. "They can e-mail back andforth with their teachers and within the district, and they can sende-mail outside, although we don't encourage that or teach them howto do it," Warner says. "But we're trying to achieve zerospam, and the only way to do that was to not allow any inbound messagingfrom the outside to those accounts. That has made people morecomfortable about letting the younger kids have accounts." While students in grade 6 and above can get e-mail from outside,there has been much debate about where to draw the line. "Weactually started higher, blocking it for junior high as well, but we raninto too many instances where junior high kids had connections withstudents who were friends, neighbors or relatives at other schools, sowe knocked the age limit down a bit," Warner says. "It seemsto be working where it is now." Using white lists and black lists in spam filters A software routine that deletes incoming spam or diverts it to a "junk" mailbox (see spam folder). Also called "spam blockers," spam filters are built into a user's e-mail program. can help inblocking unwanted messages and allowing other harmless mails to getthrough. Barracuda uses these lists, which it calls "block"lists, as part of its e-mail security protection. White lists contain domains and e-mail addresses--of students'parents, for example--that district administrators deem acceptable sothat mail received from them will be allowed to go through. Black listsidentify known spam servers so that Barracuda can block them. Barracudamaintains its own block list, and customers have the option to useothers. The Millard (Neb.) Public Schools use a different type of system,Gaggle.Net, to provide safe e-mail accounts for students. On Gaggle.Net,teachers control what can be written and who can correspond withstudents. All e-mail is checked against a list of about 250 inappropriatewords and phrases Words and Phrases?A multivolume set of law books published by West Group containing thousands of judicial definitions of words and phrases, arranged alphabetically, from 1658 to the present. , and messages containing those words are automaticallyrerouted to a teacher's account. Then the teacher decides whetheror not the student gets to see the message. Gaggle.Net also takes avisual fingerprint of any graphic, whether embedded Inserted into. See embedded system. in the e-mail orattached to it, to determine whether it might be pornographic. "It's all about parents and teachers wanting to keeptheir students safe," says Mary Ehlers, an instructional technologyfacilitator in the Millard district. "This is like a digital locker Digital locker [1], is a Microsoft platform for the delivery of software electronically that works with Windows Marketplace and is secured by use of Windows Live ID. within a school building. It allows us to see what's happening in astudent's account." The district is working now with Gaggle.Net to let parents monitortheir own children's accounts as well, Ehlers adds. Technology Challenges As with just about all technology, keeping updated on e-mail takessome getting used to for administrators and teachers. There are neverenough hours in the day for teachers, who face a learning curve to adaptto Gaggle.Net, says Ehlers. Probably the worst event that can happen is common to computerusers everywhere--a crash. "When it crashes, everything comes to astandstill standstill/stand��still/ (stand��stil?) cessation of activity, as of the heart (cardiac s.) or chest (respiratory s.) . stand��stilln.Complete cessation of activity or progress. ," says Dozier. "That's why we have a backupphone system that operates via cell towers. And if the phone lines godown, our walkie-talkie phones still operate." But "e-mail is huge for us," he says. "I'm notsaying the phone is obsolete, but most communication I get comes viae-mail--from parents, even from the public. I've got one from a momasking about cheerleaders Notable cheerleadersPaula Abdul, Los Angeles Lakers, Van Nuys High School Christina Aguilera, North Allegheny Intermediate High School[] Kirstie Alley Ann-Margret Toni Basil Kim Basinger Halle Berry Sandra Bullock[0] . Someone else is asking about recycling. Youwould be surprised at the number of things I get. The technology hasmade my life easier, and the pluses far outweigh the minuses." RELATED ARTICLE: Revelations the 21st century way. SOMETIMES STUDENTS HAVE INFORMATION ABOUT POTENTIALLY TR0UBLINGSITuations but are reluctant to provide it to school authorities. Nowe-mail offers a way for students to pass on tips directly andquickly--and anonymously, if they wish. In the Pearl (Miss.) Public School District, junior high and highschool students are using Talk About It, an innovative new e-mailprogram Software in the user's computer that can access the mail servers in a local or remote network. Also known as an "e-mail client," "mail client," "mail program," and "mail reader," it provides the ability to send and receive e-mail messages and file attachments. , to report their concerns. Administrators, teachers andcounselors received 2,800 reports from them during the past school year,according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. Superintendent John G. Ladner. They ranged from "the day-to-day stresses of children going toschool--bullying was a big one," to family dysfunctions, mostlyverbal abuse verbal abusePsychology A form of emotional abuse consisting of the use of abusive and demeaning language with a spouse, child, or elder, often by a caregiver or other person in a position of power. See Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Spousal abuse. and some physical abuse, he says. Administrators considered 619 of the messages to be"valid," requiring investigations, Ladner says. Principals,assistant principals, counselors and designated trained teachers took onthose responsibilities. Pearl is one of 87 school districts in 12 states that use TalkAbout It, which was developed by AnComm, a two-year-old company. Its keyfeature, which distinguishes it from regular e-mail programs, is thatstudents who use it don't have to identify themselves and thus aremore comfortable using it. Students can log in to their school'spersonalized per��son��al��ize?tr.v. per��son��al��ized, per��son��al��iz��ing, per��son��al��iz��es1. To take (a general remark or characterization) in a personal manner.2. To attribute human or personal qualities to; personify. Talk About It home page and send messages to facultyanytime from any Web-connected computer, PDA of wireless device. "There is a huge stigma among kids about ratting on somebody,and for this Internet generation of children, it is logical to useonline messaging technology to let them connect with adults in theirschools," says Carter B. Myers, AnComm's president. In addition to bullying and problems at home, incidents reported bystudents in districts using the system have ranged from threats ofviolence to cheating, drug and alcohol abuse, pregnancy, problems withteachers, depression and stress, cutting or self-mutilation, sexualharassment sexual harassment,in law, verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature, aimed at a particular person or group of people, especially in the workplace or in academic or other institutional settings, that is actionable, as in tort or under equal-opportunity statutes. and date rape date rapen. forcible sexual intercourse by a male acquaintance of a woman, during a voluntary social engagement in which the woman did not intend to submit to the sexual advances and resisted the acts by verbal refusals, denials or pleas to stop, and/or physical , according to AnComm. At one school, a troubled student's report led administratorsto take steps to take action; to move in a matter.See also: Step that prevented a suicide. Tips in other schools havehelped officials confiscate To expropriate private property for public use without compensating the owner under the authority of the Police Power of the government. To seize property.When property is confiscated it is transferred from private to public use, usually for reasons such as guns and other weapons, heading offpotential violent attacks, Myers says. With school systems across the country grappling with newstrategies for improving safety and security, Myers thinks improvingcommunication between students, faculty and administrators is vital. Hesays Talk About It gives students, administrators and law-enforcementofficials a way to share critical information while protectingstudents' privacy. "You want your children and the communityto be aware that things can happen and to know there is someplace some��place?adv. & n.Somewhere: "I didn't care where I was from so long as it was someplace else"Garrison Keillor.See Usage Note at everyplace. theycan go, somebody they can turn to," says Ladner, whose districtparticipated in a pilot run for the program. "There are cries forhelp, but if you do not have a way to hear them, they will not beheard." RESOURCES 3N www.3online.com AnComm www.ancomm.com Barracuda Networks www.barracuda.com CDW-G CDW-G CDW - Government (formerly Computer Discount Warehouse - Government)School Safety Index www.cdw.com Gaggle.Net www.gaggle.net GFI GFI Ground Fault InterrupterGFI Go For ItGFI Government-Furnished InformationGFI Growing Families InternationalGFI Goodness of Fit IndicesGFI Government Financial Institutions (Philippines)GFI Gross Farm Income www.gfi.com/emailsecuritytest Honeywell Instant Alert www.honeywell.com IronPort Systems www.ironport.com SWREG SWREG Software Registration www.softheap.com/emlsec Tumbleweed Communications Tumbleweed Communications Corp. provides messaging security solutions for enterprise and government customers of all sizes [1]. Organizations use their products to block security threats, protect information, and conduct business online. www.tumbleweed tumbleweed,any of several plants, particularly abundant in prairie and steppe regions, that commonly break from their roots at maturity and, drying into a rounded tangle of light, stiff branches, roll before the wind, covering long distances and scattering seed as .com Alan Dessoff is a freelance writer based in Maryland.