By: Hannah Glines
In a first-ever email move, Eaton High School took a leap in the world of technology and giving every student and teacher their own Gmail account to synchronize communication. After experiencing continuous trouble with School Fusion, the Technology Committee decided to turn to Google in April of last year. This new way of communicating is as tech coordinator Jerry Windsor said, “What students will encounter in the real world.”
According to Windsor, the benefits to going to Google are endless with calendars, docs, groups, and an immediate back- up system. USB drives are a thing of the past because now what students save on Google docs automatically saves and can be accessed from school, home, or anywhere with an internet connection.
To prevent students being preyed on, only students and teachers can email each other. Student’s emails consist of their student ID number followed by @eaton.k12.co.us. Students cannot email their own personal emails and to ensure no inappropriate conversing is going on, emails between students will be somewhat monitored using what is called Postini control. If a student were to abuse their email privileges, the punishment would be the same as if he or she were to abuse the internet privilege which suspends the student from using them for a certain amount of time.
Gmail is something students will see even when they leave the halls of EHS preparing us even more for the “real” world.