Email communication is such an essential part of our everyday lives and with the recent onset of virtual learning, it seems natural that students should have email accounts to communicate in the classroom with their teachers, but are there things to consider when jumping into this form of communication?
PROS:
There are several pros when considering using email in the classroom. One being that this is a lifelong skill that we would be teaching our students. Email is such prevalent form of communication in our society today, it makes sense to teach our students how to use it and use it effective and appropriately. Secondly, students would be able to communicate and collaborate with their classmates in a virtual setting in a way that they would not be able to do if they did not have email. Lastly, email would provide students with a way to communicate directly with their teacher. During the most recent stint of online/virtual learning at our elementary school, this came up with 4th and 5th grade teachers. The only form of communication they had was with the parent of their students. The teachers felt that outside of their live sessions, it would have benefited them to be able to communicate directly with the students in their class through email. However, this brings me to the next point, cons.
CONS:
Most email providers have an age restriction of 13 years old to be able to set up an email account. However, there are now providers that have family accounts that will allow the parent to set up the account on behalf of the child and set up parental controls. Parents also need to very carefully monitor what is being written in their child’s emails. Even with the parental features set it is not perfect. Cyberbullying and inappropriate language are real and can happen through email. This is one of the big reasons why using email in the classroom is not a great idea. Students that are older than 13 and wouldn’t need a parent to set up their email account, would need to be monitored even more. Parents would need to watch who their child was emailing, what was being said, and what language was being used.
Email also tends, like text messages, to be more informal and acronyms tend to be used. We are already struggling with getting our students to write, email could be a step in the wrong direction. Students could also become easily distracted and off task if they are using email in the classroom instead of doing their work. This might happen more if we are in the classroom, but could also happen in a virtual setting as well.
In conclusion, just like with anything else, email could be a very useful tool for students to have in the classroom, especially at these unprecedented times, but they would need to be taught how to appropriately use it, the right expectations would need to be set, and before it was put into place, the age of the student would need to be considered.
Emma. (2019, January 31). How Classroom Email Use Benefits Students. Retrieved July 04, 2020, from https://learnsafe.com/how-classroom-email-use-benefits-students/
Fort, A. (2017, October 13). Why Teachers are Against E-mails in the Classroom. Retrieved July 04, 2020, from https://elearningindustry.com/why-teachers-are-against-e-mails-in-the-classroom