Online service helps Sikeston students, teachers

SIKESTON, Mo. -- An online subscription service is helping Sikeston teachers and students communicate safely while adhering to district policy.

Michelle Gilmer, district technology coordinator, briefed school board members on the service during their regular meeting Tuesday.

"Several teachers now are having students make digital documents, PowerPoint projects, movies and things like that, and they needed a way to turn those [assignments] into them," Gilmer told the board. "We didn't have a good system other than a teacher walking around with a jump drive, which isn't very efficient."

In addressing this issue but also the policy the board adopted last month, which dealt with communication between teachers and students, Gilmer said the district purchased an online subscription service for students in fifth through 12th grades.

"This gives them student emails from our district," Gilmer said. "It gives the teachers a digital drop box for turning in those assignments. It gives the students a digital locker so they can work on projects from home if they need to, and it gives them some blogs, message boards and communication tools."

Gilmer noted the email is only between students and teachers so students cannot email each other or outside of the district. Use of the online tool is all archived and filtered, she said.

"We can look at it, so if a teacher needs to send a reminder to students about homework or tests, or a student has a question for their teacher, they do it through Gaggle and we don't have to worry about that being exclusive communication, because the administrators can see all of that," Gilmer said.

Although it's currently not activated, Gaggle does have the ability to do texting, Gilmer said.

Pertinent address:

Sikeston, MO