Foxborough Middle and High Schoolers to Receive School Email Addresses

The following was submitted by Foxborough Public Schools Assistant Superintendent Amy Berdos as part of the Teaching and Learning Highlight Series.

The latest Teaching and Learning Highlight featured email accounts for students in grades 5-12. Mr. Aaron Hyre, Foxborough’s Director of Technology, was joined by Ahern Middle School Principal, Ms. Sue Abrams, and Foxborough High School Principal, Ms. Diana Myers-Pachla, to discuss how the district’s recent migration to Microsoft’s Office365 for online communication, collaboration and productivity tools will be made available to students at the secondary level.

Student email accounts are an exciting opportunity for both students and teachers. As the district continues to implement technology in order to provide a learning environment in which students and staff have access to technologies that promote 21st century teaching and learning, leveraging online communication and productivity tools plays an important role. Students in grades 5-8 will be provided with a student email account where varying levels of access and use will be employed. Middle school students will be restricted to sending and receiving emails between teachers and classmates with their email accounts limited to accessing only approved educational domains. High School students will have greater access as their email will not be restricted within the school community. Students’ email is considered an extension of the classroom with students expected to be good digital citizens and interact online in a manner that is consisted with all school policies and core values. All students will receive additional classroom instruction focused on internet safety and digital citizenship. These lessons will take place for all students as part of receiving their school email accounts.

In addition to the new email accounts with remote access to the already familiar productivity tools of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, students will be introduced to One Note and One Drive for the purposes of file storage, data collection and online collaboration. Providing students with these tools within Office365 will allow students the ability to collaborate and work on assignments both at home and in school. This flexibility is critical to the district’s goal to provide “anywhere, anytime” learning opportunities for students which is outlined in the district’s Five Year Technology Plan. This plan can be viewed on the district’s homepage at http://foxborough.k12.ma.us.