This letter was sent home to parents of students at Paine Intermediate School (Grades 3-5) in Trussville, Alabama. The original included contact information for the teacher, principal, and district IT director.

Dear Parents:

Exciting things are happening in Paine Intermediate’s computer lab!! Students are setting up personal email accounts through Gaggle.net, a kid-friendly email site. This is a school-oriented email service in which teachers monitor content. Before activating an account for Paine Intermediate, Gaggle verified that we were a functioning school and I was a certified teacher.

One of the first assignments using email will be to send a message to: (1) peers in their class, (2) their parents, and (3) teachers. When you receive an email from your child, you will have a record of their email address. Your child’s password is his/her lunch number. If you do not receive an email from your child, please exchange email addresses with them. The students are truly excited to communicate with their parents during the school day.

We began our email lessons using Yahoo email accounts. However, it was discovered that access to unsuitable content was a possibility on the Yahoo site. All Yahoo accounts that were established have been cancelled and will no longer be accessible.

Recently, I attended an I-Safe training about cyber safety. I am sharing Internet safety tips with the children during class. E-mail has been a wonderful opportunity to convey tips such as not using your first and last name together; never opening email from strangers; and never giving out too much information about yourself. I feel that kids need to be technologically equipped to survive and participate in the 21st century. Just like other life skills, technology is more effective if it is modeled by an adult. If the children of today are instructed about how to properly and respectfully use email and other cyber information, then they will be more responsible adolescents and adults in the cyber world.

As parents, it is important that you monitor your child’s Internet usage at home, including email. Computers in the home need to be located in a heavily used area, like the den or kitchen. Kids are safer if an adult can look over their shoulders and see the information on the computer screen. Conversations about Internet usage and email in the home will reinforce the safety issues that I am covering at school.

According to the Alabama Technology Course of Study (State Standards), students in grades 3 thru 5 should be able to “use telecommunications and other media to collaborate and interact with peers and other audiences following appropriate laws and regulations.” The National Education Technology Standards profess the use of telecommunications and online resources (e.g., e-mail, online discussions, Web environments) to participate in collaborative problem-solving activities for the purpose of developing solutions or products for audiences inside and outside the classroom. My technology curriculum is in line with the state and national standards. Eventually, Paine students will have e-pals at schools in other states and possibly other countries. (What a fabulous culture exchange!) They will also use email to gather information for research projects.

If you would like for your child to use an email account that you establish, please send that email address to me. I am keeping a log of email addresses for all the students. If you are not comfortable with your child participating in this email project, please sign the attached waiver and return it to me.

For questions and concerns about email, Shawn Nutting, Director of Technology, will be available in Paine Intermediate’s amphitheater on October 17 during Open House from 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Thank you,

Kristi Stacks
Technology Specialist
Paine Intermediate School