Tag Archives: gmail

A Googleaholic’s Guide to all things gmail

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Much of my day is spent dealing with considerably more emails than the average person!

Perhaps I know too much about Gmail and Google Apps Mail to be healthy?

But also means I’ve got cool tips to help you gett more out of your gmail account….or make you want to set up a gmail account!

gmail21What is Gmail?

Gmail is Google’s free webmail that you can access from any computer, anywhere.

It is one of the best web based email accounts you can use because of features like:

  • Threaded email
  • Ability to search easily both email and chat messages
  • Labels and filters
  • Lots of storage space

The Gmail+ method that every educator should be aware of!

Perhaps one of the coolest reasons why educators need to know about gmail is the gmail+ method.

Educators often don’t want their students to use their own email address for creating online accounts.  Unfortunately most websites require users use unique email addresses.

The gmail+ method provides the solution!

How it works is you create one gmail account for your class.

For example, mathiscool@gmail.com or room16@gmail.com.

Set up a class gmail account

Then you use your one class gmail account with the gmail+ method to create each student account.

Gmail ignores any letters and numbers you add after a + sign and sends all emails to the one account while the web site where you are setting up the account thinks each is a unique email.

So for example, you might use mathiscool+seanp10@gmail.com, mathiscool+davep10@gmail.com and so on for creating their usernames and gmail will send all emails to the class gmail account mathiscool@gmail.com

Using the gmail+ method

Achieving Zero Inbox

The idea of zero inbox is you action emails quickly and once dealt with, you immediately archive them.

No more 1000+ emails in your inbox — weighing you down!   Instead your inbox works like a to-do-list where you’re working through the tasks quickly.

And no stress!  When you archive in gmail it takes the emails from your inbox and moves them into ALL MAIL.

This cleans up your inbox without deleting them,  making emails findable when you search your email with keywords or click on a Label.

Achieving zero inbox is as simple as:

  1. Respond to emails, label if necessary, and then archive them immediately by clicking on ‘Send and Archive’!
  2. Any emails that you can’t archive, because they require action in a few days, add a label as reminder, archive them and use multiple inboxes as your reminder list.
  3. As notifications arrive that you no longer need immediately unsubscribe from their service or set up a filter to automatically archive them.

Archiving emails

Archiving emailsIf your inbox is currently overwhelmed use select All and click on Archive to get to it under control!

Working with labels

Labels in gmail are a bit like folders in Microsoft Outlook except you can add more than one label to an email and keep them easily findable, whereas with Outlook the email is move into the folder.

Clicking on a label displays all messages in ALL MAIL with that label.

The idea is you use labels that are meaningful to you and help you sort/find emails.

Don’t stress too much creating labels!  You can rename, delete or hide labels any time — so they are easily change.

Create a new label by:

  1. Clicking on More
  2. Clicking on Create new label
  3. Adding the name of the new label and clicking OK

Creating a new label

Assigning a label(s) to an email is a simple as selecting the label(s) from the dropdown menu next to labels.

Adding a label to an email

To make labels easier to manage you can create nested labels!

Nested labels allow you to organize your labels hierarchically.

All you need to do is:

  1. Go to Settings > Labs
  2. Enable Nested Labels
  3. Click Save Changes at bottom of page
  4. Create the parent label you want to use
  5. Create their child labels by using the parent label followed with slash (/) and the child label name.

For example, if you used the gmail+ method with your students you could create nested labels to manage the student’s account information, comment notifications etc.

Now all you need to do is click on the label for that student to find their emails.

Creating nested labels

And you can color coordinate your labels :)

Colored labels makes them easiser to work with.

Coloring your labels

Keep an eye on your spam label

Gmail is very good at handling spam.

But unfortunately, as with any email account, legitimate emails can be sent to spam label.

By default gmail hides the spam folder so it’s easy to not realise legitimate emails are being spammed.

Here’s my advice:

  1. Change your gmail spam folder to show
  2. Regularly check your spam folder for legitimate emails and unspam any legitimate emails

To always have your spam folder display you can either:

1. Drag your spam label out of the More area and into your main menu

Drag and dropping your spam folder

2.  Or go to Settings > Labels and click on Show next to Spam

Changing your spam folder to show

Now you’ll easily be able to see how many emails have been spammed and can easily check it for those missing emails :)

Working with filters

Filters are great for managing incoming emails because you can set up filters that automatically label, archive, delete, star or forward emails based on keywords, email address etc.

For example, you used the gmail+ method with your students and set up a filter with their gmail+ addresses that automatically labels email with student name.

Creating a filter to label emails is as simple as:

  1. Go to Settings > Labs
  2. Scroll to bottom of page and click on ‘Create new Filter’
  3. Add the email address of the incoming email you want to label
  4. Click Next Step
  5. Select Apply the Label and choose the label from the drop down menu
  6. Click Create Filter

Creating a filter

Working with Multiple Inboxes

Multiple Inboxes lets you have more than one ‘inbox’ in your default Gmail view.

This is handy for organizing emails that you can’t yet archive but need to keep for a few days while you’re working them.

Creating multiple inboxes is as simple as:

  1. Go to Settings > Labs
  2. Enable Multiple Inboxes
  3. Click Save Changes at bottom of page
  4. Now go to Settings > Multiple Inboxes
  5. Select your search query
  6. Set your extra panes position
  7. Click Save Changes

Example of multiple inboxes

Favorite Gmail Lab features

Here’s my favorite gmail labs for extra features:

  • Canned Response – lets you compose text once, save the text with the “Canned responses” button and then insert by clicking on correct canned response in the drop down menu. We use this feature for managing the signatures of the support team who reply from the Edublogs support gmail account.
  • Google Calendar gadget
  • Send & Archive – essential for quick archiving of emails
  • Nested labels
  • Multiple inboxes
  • Superstars
  • Undo Send – for all those times you wish you could unsend that email!
  • Right side chat

And learning more about the people who email you!

Rapportive is an add on for Gmail and Google Apps Mail.

It shows you everything about someone who emails you right inside your inbox.

The instant you open up their email, if they have used it with any social networking site, you’ll immediately see what they look like, where they’re based, what they do and what they might be talking about.

Rapportive information

Final thoughts

Everyone has their own secret ingredients for using gmail:

  1. What did I miss?
  2. What are your tips for getting more out of gmail?

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Missing emails! Have you checked your spam folder?

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When did you last check your spam folder?

I’ve been getting numerous emails recently such as ‘why aren’t I receiving my comment notification emails’,  ‘I haven’t received the emails for my student’s login details’ and ‘why haven’t you responded to my email.’

Unfortunately, gmail users are being caught out by legitimate emails being sent to spam and since by default gmail now hides the spam folder they aren’t realising.

Here’s my advice:

  1. Change your gmail spam folder to show
  2. Regularly check your spam folder for legitimate emails and unspam any legitimate emails

How to change your gmail spam folder setting

By default the spam folder is now located underneath the More drop down menu.

Locating the spam folder

To always have your spam folder display you can either:

1. Drag your spam label out of the More area and into your main menu

Drag and dropping your spam folder

2.  Or go to Settings > Labels and click on Show next to Spam

Changing your spam folder to show

Presto!

Now you’ll easily be able to see how many emails have been spammed and can easily check it for those missing emails :)

Final Thoughts

Looking for more tips on using email?

Check out:

  1. What You Really Ought To Know About Emails!
  2. Creating Student Accounts Using One Gmail Account
  3. How To Moderate All Comments and Posts On Student Blogs

And remember filters, especially strict ones for education email addresses,  often block legitimate emails.

Make sure when emailing from an education email account you include an alternative email address such as gmail or hotmail.

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How To Moderate All Comments and Posts On Student Blogs

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I’m frequently asked ‘how to moderate all posts and comments on student blogs so that nothing is published until approved by a teacher’ because there are situations where it’s necessary.

I’ll tell you how to do it below – but first it’s important to mention educators have differing opinions on moderation and use two main approaches:

  1. Students are allowed to publish own posts and approve all comments
  2. Students posts and comments aren’t published until approved by a teacher

There are pros/cons to each of these approaches which I don’t have time to discuss in this post but would love to follow up in a later post.

So please share your thoughts on moderation by leaving a comment:

  1. Which approach do you take and why?
  2. Do you moderate all comments and posts?  Or not?

Step 1: Create the student blogs using the gmail+ method

The easiest way to moderate all the comments is for all comments from the student blogs to be sent to one email account.

You do this by creating the blogs using the gmail+ method.

How it works is Gmails ignores anything in the first half of an email address after a plus sign so if you create each email with the format username+studentname@gmail.com all emails will be sent to the inbox of username@gmail.com.

If you don’t want to use your own gmail account then set up a gmail account for your class e.g. room15@gmail.com.

This means every comment that is posted on any of the blog will automatically be sent to the one gmail account making it really easier for you to read, approve or delete.

All you need to do is just click on appropriate link in the email!

Image of comment moderation email

Here are instructions for creating student blogs (Remember to add yourself as administrator to the student blogs!)

  1. For free Eublogs blog users – read Creating student blogs using the Signup page
  2. Edublogs Supporter and Edublogs Campus users – refer to Using Blog & User Creator to create student blogs

adminbloguser

Step 2: Change The Comment Moderation Settings

The default comment setting for all newly created blogs is ‘Comment author must have a previously approved comment.’ This means once you’ve approved one comment from a commenter all subsequent comments by that person will be automatically published without being moderated.

For all comments to be moderated and approved by a teacher before appearing on the blog you need to change the comment moderation setting for all student blogs to include ‘An administrator must always approve the comment’.

Changing comment settings is as simple as:

  1. Go to Settings > Discussion Image of Discusion tab
  2. Select ‘An administrator must always approve the comment’. Image of comment moderation setting
  3. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page

For more information about managing comments refer to:

  1. Engaging with readers through comments
  2. Controlling who can comment on posts
  3. Managing, editing and approving comments

Step 3: Changing the Student’s role on the blog

In most situations student blogs are created with the students automatically assigned the role of administrator.

To moderate their posts,  so it a post is only published after approval by a teacher, you need to change their role on the blog to Contributor.

Please note you must first add yourself as as administrator on the student blog as follows:

  1. Creating blogs for your students using the Signup page – free Edublogs blogs
  2. Using the Blog & User creator to create student blogs – Edublogs Supporters & Edublogs Campus only.

adminbloguser

To change their role:

  1. Go to Users > Authors & Users Image of Author menu
  2. Select the user you want to change, click on drop down arrow to select Contributor and then click Change Image of contributor role

When a contributor writes a post it is saved as a pending to await approval by an administrator or editor.

To approve a post:

  1. Navigate to the dashboard of the student blog Image of navigating the blogs
  2. Click on Post > Edit Image of edit posts
  3. Those posts submitted for review by your student will have pending next to their title.
  4. Hovering your mouse over the title of a post brings up four action links: Edit; Quick Edit; Delete and Preview.   Image of pending
  5. To publish just click on Edit or Quick Edit and then click Update Post.

For more information refer to Editing posts.

Please note:

FINAL THOUGHTS

Please share your thoughts on moderation by leaving a comment:

  1. Which approach do you take and why?
  2. Do you moderate all comments and posts?
  3. Or do you allow students to publish own posts and approve all comments?

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What You Really Ought To Know About Emails!

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The most common questions I’m asked and problems I have to deal with daily always relates to emails. To help with your email frustrations, let me explain the answers one at a time.

Do students need to use an email address?

It depends.

If you only want your students to write comments on the posts, you can change your settings so an email isn’t required. Simple as unselecting ‘Comment author must fill out name and e-mail in Settings > Discussion.

Image of removing email required in comment

On your posts the comment may still show author and email required but with these settings changed they definitely aren’t!

An email address is needed when:

  1. You want to add students to a class blog so they can write posts
  2. Your blog is private i.e. only visible to logged in users or logged in registered subscribers
  3. You want students to have their own blogs

Why is an email address required?

To create usernames or blogs you need to use a ‘real’ email address because:

  1. When you use the Edublogs signup page an email with a link to activate your username or blog is sent to your email address. If you don’t click on that link the account isn’t created.
  2. To reset your password when you forget it.
  3. To receive email notifications of new comments and any comments held in moderations.
  4. When you delete a blog you’re sent an email to the address attached to the blog URL; you can’t delete the blog without clicking on the link in that email.

Each username needs its own unique email address whereas you can have lots of blogs attached to the same email address.

It won’t allow you to create several usernames with the same email address because the system resets your password based on email address. But you can trick it using the gmail+ method.

Please Note: Don’t ask me to delete blogs; I won’t! Deleted blogs can’t be undeleted.

Do students need to use their own email addresses?

No! You can trick the system by using the gmail+ method.

How it works is Gmail ignores anything in the first half of an email address after a plus sign so if you create each email with the format username+studentname@gmail.com all emails will be sent to the inbox of username@gmail.com .

This also means that if you want to moderate comments on all student blogs they will be sent to your one email address.

Just remember if you use this method:

  1. You must first create a ‘gmail account.’
  2. All aspects of managing that blog and/or username is attached to that email address including password resets.

TIP: The gmail+ method can be used for creating accounts on most websites.

I signed up for a blog but I haven’t received the activation email!

The activation email is sent when you sign up using the Edublogs signup page. It normally arrives within 30 minutes and includes a link which you use to activate your username/blog.

The username and blog won’t exist in the system until you click on that link to activate the account. You have 48 hours to activate otherwise you need to reset up your account.

Unfortunately spam filters, especially strict ones for education email addresses, often block these activation emails. Try checking your spam folder. If it doesn’t arrive you will need to create a new account using a free web based email such as gmail, hotmail or yahoo.

Please note:

  1. When you create blogs using the Blog & User creator the accounts are automatically created i.e. doesn’t need activating.
  2. Make sure you test your email system before creating a large number of usernames/blogs to ensure your spam filter doesn’t block the emails
  3. Don’t ask me to send you the password and blog URL if you don’t receive the activation email — I can’t help you — your account doesn’t exist in our system

When I click the link for “Lost my password” I don’t receive my new password!

Unfortunately spam filters, especially strict ones for education email addresses, often block the password emails. Occasionally people will receive an email with the link to reset the password but not the second email with the new password.

If this happens you will need to contact us at Edublogs support (support[at]edublogs[dot]org) with your username and blog URL so we can manually re-set your password.

Once we’ve changed your password you will need to:

  1. Re-set it to a better password
  2. Change your email address to a free web based email such as gmail, hotmail or yahoo (Users > Your Profile)

I’ve sent an email to Edublogs Support and got no response!

Erm we do respond to emails but if you have used a school email address there’s a good chance your email filters are blocking all of our different emails.

Where possible don’t use a school email address unless you know it won’t block our emails!

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Creating Student Accounts Using One Gmail Account

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Image of blog email addressWhen you set up blogs with multiple users the comment notifications are only sent to the email address that was used to set up the blog.

So if you’ve set up student blogs with your student’s email address using Edublogs Blog & User Creator feature comment notifications will be sent to your student. This is a problem if you wanted all comments sent to you for moderation.

While you can change the email address in blog settings (Settings > General) a simpler solution is to set up the student blogs using one Gmail account.

Using Gmail To Create Student Accounts

Gmail (or Google Mail) is Google’s free web email service with tons of storage space and lots of great features e.g. ability to easy search mail messages, threaded messages, built in chat.  Create your gmail account here.  I recommend choosing a name that people can identify easily as being you e.g. mine is my name with the s missing from the end of waters.

Educators can use one Gmail account to set up student blogs or sign up for different online services using gmail’s support of plus addressing. How this works is simple! Gmails ignores anything in the first half of an email address after a plus sign so if you create each email with the format username+studentname@gmail.com all emails will be sent to the inbox of username@gmail.com. You can use both text and numbers in the student names.

Image of using gmail to create blogs

FINAL THOUGHTS

Remember when using Edublogs Blog & User Creator feature to create student blogs the students are automatically added as Administrators (here is an explanation of the different roles you can assign users).  Also don’t forget to change selection to Yes in the Add Admin field if you wanted to add yourself as co administrator when creating the student blogs.

NOTE: to have access to the Edublogs Blog & User Creator for batch creating 15 blogs at a time you need to be an Edublogs supporter.

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