The school-provided email is a valuable tool for students to communicate with their teachers, be notified of important dates and discover new opportunities, yet it is often ignored and not used to its full potential by students.
The Office 365 account that student’s get through school gives student’s an email account, the one used to log on to computers, but also that can be used to ask teachers for help on an assignment or to sign up to the email list of colleges.
One of the perks to checking emails often is that on a weekly basis a Benson Bunny News email is sent out, often on Fridays, which includes: announcements, upcoming college visits, club meetings, athletic events, and information for seniors, such as graduation and scholarships.
For many students all of those emails are still to be read due to two issues: no one tells them about it, or teachers read it out for them only for them to not listen or forget the moment they walk out of school.
Being up to date with emails and making it a habit to check at least once a day should be required of students given that in the workplace it is used regularly.
After graduation email turns into part of everyday life, anything from work to communicating with family is often done through those means. If student’s attend college sooner or later they’ll have to email a professor.
Checking email is important, however, being able to compose one is another skill our students lack, it’s quite simple and can be a lifesaver when student’s don’t understand an assignment and they don’t have a teacher at home to help.
All it takes is a brief description of what the email is about in the subject line, a proper greeting at the beginning, asking for or about something, or giving some information to the person they are emailing and then end with a friendly sign-off.
To encourage students to check their email more, seniors have received emails that can earn them gift cards simply for checking their email. Such rewards will get more students to read some of those emails and should be available for the other grade levels in the future.