Instructify

So, you’re reading about all these great Web 2.0 tools on Instructify, and you want to start using them in your class, but as you try to set things up, you run into a little-bitty hitch…when you go to sign up students, the sites ask you for an email for each student.

You ponder the wisdom of giving twenty-plus 6-10 year olds their own email. Your district may explicitly forbid this (in addition to your own common sense about things). What to do?

Some Web 2.0 applications (like Wikispaces, and VoiceThread) will let you set up classrooms with an email. For Wikispaces, just email help@wikispaces with a list of student names/user names and a password for each one. For VoiceThread, sub accounts are built in. Just go to your account page, and click on the add identity button.

You could also sign up for Gaggle Mail, a service that will provide free emails to schools (with ads which can be turned off by paying a fee).

What if you have a service that is not as accommodating as Wikispaces and VoiceThread, but you don’t want to be administrator to a classroom full of emails even on a service like Gaggle Mail? Well, there is a GMail work-around. It’s called the “append” feature. Here is an example:

1. First, you will need your own GMail account (but only one is necessary). Let’s say you are awesometeacher978@gmail.com
2. You go into Ning, or Tumblr, or Edublogs to set up a blog for a student (you can do this as a batch process in Edublogs).
3. When it asks for an email, type in your gmail account name, but add a plus sign and something that will identify that student.
   ex: awesometeacher978+malik@gmail.com
4. The beauty of it is that if the service requires that you answer a confirmation email it still works because GMail ignores that +malik, and will send the email message through to awesometeacher978’s account.

So don’t fear the Web 2.0 gatekeeper asking for an email, and try some of these solutions in your classroom. -ALICE MERCER

Hat tip to Sue Waters at the Edublogger