Sign Me Up! The Elementary Email Solution: Linked Gmail Accounts
18 10 2007One of my biggest stumbling blocks as I’ve switched gears from middle to elementary school is individual e-mail accounts for the students. Back in middle school, I could always count on every student having their own e-mail account. Even if, for some strange reason, one or two students didn’t have one, I could just ask them to sign up for one before the next class and it would be done. Alas, nothing is quite that easy at the elementary level….
In our case, for lower elementary students, we really only need each student to have an individual, permanent, e-mail address to sign up for other services (not to actually send and receive e-mail). So, in order to get our second grade class up and running with Ning accounts for our Global Village project (which, of course, require a consistent e-mail address for log in purposes - no mailenator for us), and in preparation for all of our Global Communication Center projects, I spent less than an hour today solving my problem, thanks to Gmail.
Basically, Gmail allows you to create subsidiary accounts linked to an individual Gmail account. Check out this great screencast demonstrating how to create linked Gmail accounts that Alec Courosa made with Jing earlier today (I need to start getting the kids to make screencasts with Jing next - what a great way to create tutorials!).
Basically, this means that one teacher can have 20 permanent e-mail accounts that are all delivered into one teacher e-mail account. Therefore, if the teacher account is teacher@gmail.com, all you have to do is add a “+studentname” before the @ symbol to make a linked account. Therefore mail sent to teacher+studentname@gmail.com will go straight to teacher@gmail.com. Of course, given that Gmail terms and conditions require users to be over 18, we did send out a permission slip to all parents to get their formal approval that we create these linked accounts.
This means that all students will have to learn is “their” e-mail address so that they can log into the Ning (or wiki, or whatever) independently, but they never have to actually see their e-mail, check an in-box, or deal with any spam. This also allows us to be consistent in the classroom, with all students essentially having the same e-mail address to remember - only needing to input their name after the “+” sign.
Also, thanks to the filtering and labeling feature in Gmail, the teacher can filter all incoming mail into specific labels for each student, thereby saving passwords and user account info for future reference, just in case. And, with the (basically) unlimited storage that Gmail provides, this should be the perfect place to keep those kinds of records - accessible from anywhere, by anyone with the teacher password (in this case, both myself and the classroom teacher).
As far as I’m concerned this is the perfect solution for our younger students. It took me less than an hour to set up the initial e-mail account, invite all 18 students to our Ning, accept all 18 invitations, and approve all 18 membership requests. Certainly, it’s not ideal to have the teacher doing all this (especially when I’m used to the students being able to handle sign-ups on their own) but it’s far better than actually having individual accounts and worrying about students maintaining them on their own when they’re 7 & 8 years old.
Bring on the global collaborations! We’re ready!
Tags: elementary, 21stcentury, globalcollaborations, email, gmail, globalcommunicationcenter
Hi! My name is Kim Cofino. 
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Kim,
I have had great luck using this Gmail feature in setting up learner blogs. This last month, I got with one of our 7th grade science teachers for a project that required students to use googlepages. The problem with the subsidary account is it cannot be used to create a Google account. Have you come across some other ways to work around the need for an e-mail address to access 2.0 tools?
Hi Kim - Thanks for explaining this well. I knew that you could do it but was not quite sure how it works so was nice to read a post that explains it very clearly.
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt [...]
My kids use what you described to sign-up for all their wikis and blogs.help@wikispaces.com.
I also use the gmail account with parents. They use:
“email”+”initials of kid&relationship to kid”@gmail.com when they comment. Then the kids know who it is and accept the comment without getting approval from me.
This is a great tip Kim, and super technique, esp. for elementary settings. How cool that Alex in Canada saw you twitter from Thailand and posted that great screencast. Connected learning never ceases to amaze me. I look forward to sharing this with teachers interested in facilitating student collaborative projects with sites that require unique student emails!
Thanks, Kim. You have explained it so well. I have been using the linked gmail accounts to set up blogs for some of my classes as you can see what students are doing easily, both posting and commenting. I did this with Year 7s when our filter would not let emails from our school though from the edublogs isp (don’t know why and since fixed) and it helped me at least get the students blogging at that time. Thanks for the post
Great solution, Kim.
Re: Jing, by the way, just curious: why Jing instead of Screencast-o-Matic.com? SOM is web-based (no download), allows 15 minutes instead of five, gives you as many channels for your screencasts as you want, and allows comments, notes, pop-up annotations, and more. PLUS you can embed, download, etc.
Again, just curious. Thanks for the Gmail solution!
I’m so glad I found you through someone else’s Twitter to you. This is just what I need, but I didn’t know it existed.
Ann
Thanks for your blog post, this was very helpful. I have shared it already.
Cheryl
[...] or can’t be downloaded as mp3’s (VoiceThread, for instance). I understand how to “fake” email addresses for my students, but I’ve wanted to avoid that [...]
You can also set up a catchall account, which collects any mail sent to nonexisting addresses on your domain - if you have google apps for edu you can still take advantage of the filters etc.
forgot to mention that the catch all solution works on all sites including sites that don’t work with the linked account system.
I was thinking….instead of having to do this every year with a new group of students that you could instead just assign numbers. For example, each one of my kids has a number that I gave them. So if I have a 16 kids, I could just create 16 accounts of myname+1@gmail.com, and myname+2@gmail.com and so on. That way I would be able to reuse the same accounts each year with my new students. Are there any cons to this that I’m just not thinking of???
Mr. James,
Sorry - the only other way I can think of is to create individual student accounts. I’ve done that with our grade 4 and 5s (and with all my middle school students in the past). I just don’t think it’s the best option for primary grades… Let me know what you end up doing!
Sue,
I was so happy to figure it out, I knew I had to share!
Mr. B,
Great idea about parent comments! It can be so confusing to have student names and parent names floating around!
Wes,
Thanks! It was a totally Twitter moment
Jo,
I wish I had known about this option before - it really makes things so easy!
Clay,
No reason and no preference for Jing - just happened to be the tool Alec used, so I referenced it.
Ann and Cheryl,
Glad I could help!
Susant,
Excellent! You’re a G-mail pro!
Katie,
Since you’re not actually creating accounts (just adding the +name when you use the e-mail), it probably doesn’t matter whether it’s a +name or +number - in fact, it might be easier for kids to remember the +name. You only have to create one gmail account, and then you can have as many +name accounts linked as you want.
[...] this year I discovered the power of linked accounts in G-mail for elementary students. Today I learned how I can leverage that shortcut into individual [...]
Hi there! Sooooo…basically, the kids will never be able to see the email - is this the gist? I looked at Google Aps for Educ - but seems that Gmail is disabled under my domain name? I’d like to be able to use Google Docs with this system…is there a way??? I like the +name combo because it does allow you to monitor their emails, but I don’t like that it doesn’t allow them to talk - perhaps using a wiki would enhance that aspect of a project I’d like to do.
This looks like a great feature. One question - can the students actually use the sub account as their own email account or would you only use this feature in gmail to be able to create accounts with other services?
Thanks
BG
Jill,
Yes, the students would never see the e-mail. You as the teacher would see all of the e-mails directed to each individual student within that one account.
If you’re using a blog, the “talking” would come from commenting and replying to comments within blog posts. If you’re using a wiki the “talking” could come under the “discussion” tab.
Ben,
You could use the sub account if you wanted to give the students the password to the main account - then they could see all of the e-mails that everyone in the class gets, so I would not recommend that option. If you need each student to have their own individual e-mail account, I would just help your students sign up for their own G-mail account.
Hello Kim
Thank you for uncovering this and spreading the word. I had two question and and I am asking them with the spirit that no question is wrong or too small
1. If I create sub accounts for my students, will they need passwords to their sub accounts or can they just be given the email id name to help them leave comments/emails for each other in response to a class discussion or post on a class blog or to write a page? If they do need passwords - will that give them opportunity to use them in any unsafe way - say for chatting/google talk etc.?
2. My class has 40 students - will that mean I need two primary Gmail ids to accomodate 20 in each or will google allow up to 40? I am browsing and probing around.. so let’s see what comes up..
[...] reading 2 of Ms Cofino’s articles on setting up her class blog, details on how she set up Linked Gmail accounts and then how she set up the class blog on Learnerblogs, I was sort of prepared for LG asking me [...]
I’m sooo sorry to post what is probably such a beginner’s question. I am hoping to start blogging in my writing classes and I am wondering why students would need email addresses. Is it because they would not be able to post comments without one? And, if I want to have an assignment on the blog and I want the students to complete the assignment as part of the blog, is this done as a “post” or a “comment?” Also, number 1 of resh’s post: do they need passwords? Thanks so much
Resh,
Absolutely! All questions welcome!
Sub-account e-mail address will not require passwords - it’s basically like a dummy account that they can use while commenting. Only you, as the teacher, will actually see any of the e-mails that go to that account (with your username and password).
I’m not sure about the limit of the number of sub accounts with G-mail. I seem to remember reading somewhere that it’s unlimited, but that sounds too good to be true. I say test it and see what happens! And, then, of course, tell us!
Genarg,
If you are only having students comment on your blog they do not need an e-mail address. You can actually have them put any e-mail address in that required box, it doesn’t have to be a real, functioning address.
However, if you would like students to contribute to the blog (as authors), they will need an e-mail address to create a user account (which will then have a password). You might be interested in this post: Students as Contributors on Edublogs: The Quick and Easy Way
Hope that helps!
Cheers Kim,
You’ve provided some useful thoughts regarding middle-years pupils and e-mail accounts. I’ve drawn on two sources of info… one from you and the other from Sue Waters’ edublog tutorials.
This has helped me make some design choices for my students (grd 5 Melbourne based primary school). However, I initially had my pupils create their own blogs via my account. This left me (security concern) vulnerable since my students had all the access privileges given as administrator.
There are some inherent problems i.e. students accidentally / intentionally corrupting / altering passwords etc. The only solution is to provide them with ‘linked’ e-mail accounts as you suggest (and their own admin privileges to their own site).
All I need to try (if possible) is to keep their existing blogs but transfer them to their own account (is this possible??).
So, thank you for your post… most helpful.
Altan
http://altan.edublogs.org
[...] school students that could be accomplished with the famous gmail trick described before by Kim Cofino Basically, Gmail allows you to create subsidiary accounts linked to an individual Gmail account. [...]
Hi Kim - found this very useful - however we have had to close our school ning - under the terms and conditions of ning, users (defined as all those with a user ID not just the creators of the networks) must be over the age of 13.
I have corresponded with Steve Hargadon over this and he has always encouraged us to hang on… we went through the COPPA act and showed how by using dummy emails (completely false ones work on ning) no info was being collected on any minor whatsoever, so although ning was happy for us to continue the network it would still not give us a written approval or officially ’support’ the network because of it’s own terms and conditions.
UK teachers might need to be aware of this - BECTA is.
However your info has been invaluable for getting the students onto edublogs where there is no such pitfall in the terms and conditions.
Thanks again for this!
Altan,
Good question! I have absolutely no idea, though. Might be a good choice for the Edublogs Forums… If you find out, I’d love it if you could share the answer here that way we all can benefit
kingswearsealofapproval,
So glad this was helpful! Yes, Ning is really frustrating that way. They should really include a clause that adds the opportunity for younger users with parent permission - that’s what we do here, signed parent permission slips. Especially when the networks are private, protected and monitored by teachers, it doesn’t seem fair to just keep all younger students out!
[...] middle to elementary school is individual e-mail accounts for the students“. Her solution is gmail allows you to create subsidiary accounts that link to an individual account which means that one teacher can have permanent e-mail accounts for all students delivered into one [...]