Using Email to Expand the Classroom Conversation to Everywhere

Over the course of my teaching career, and particularly over the past three years, I’ve really been making an effort to include technology in most aspects of my instruction…always with an eye on keeping this inclusion meaningful instead of flashy. Some of this experimentation has already produced some clearly observable results. For example, some of my most significant, impactful classes have involved bringing outside voices into the room, sometimes from a continent away, via Skype. Now not a day goes by without a student starting a class with the question, “So who are we talking to today? Some guy from Germany, Paterson or Iran?” I take the question itself to be indicative of a personal triumph. In fact, it has become almost as popular as “can I just step out to go to the bathroom (even though we just got back from lunch)?” Stay tuned; the Skype question is climbing the charts.

Other ventures have turned out to be, well, a bit disappointing, especially my projects that require students to submit their results in Power Point. Power Point is a subject that any and every educator and administrator raves and complains about, usually at the same time. It’s a massive and not-so-compelling topic that might comprise an entire blog of its own on one day, if I can garner up the interest. It may be going too far to claim that Power Point is a “necessary evil,” rather, it’s a “necessary affliction.”

But with time and practice, I’ve learned some new things, and found some new tools. And one in particular that has been in front of me the whole time is proving to be one of the handiest of them all. It’s free. Everybody has it. It’s unlimited. It’s potentially impactful, moves at the speed of light and consistently annoys. It’s email. Email!

My embrace, for better or not, of email in my instruction is the result of two ho-hum events. Firstly, about three years ago, I made it a point to compile a “master email list” of every student in every class, and then grouped them by class and then as an entire group (I usually name this group something like USHISALL or ALLSTU or something along those lines, depending on the year). I then, in order to give myself a break in front of the copy machine, began to attach documents (primary sources, assignments, etc.) in PDF/Adobe Acrobat format with my emails. In case you might not know, PDF files are really small-sized photographic snapshots of documents that preserve and present them exactly as they appear on paper.

After a few weeks, it hit me. I had unleashed a previously unknown power that, though I had had it for a number of years, I just didn’t understand it. I had discovered the simultaneous equivalent of an instant loudspeaker, educational tool and record-keeping device of instructionally-epic proportions. I had discovered the concept of mass emailing.

Mass emailing is usually regarded as a serious irritation, and sometimes-outright threat to inboxes everywhere. Jokes, inappropriate pictures, news clips, whatever…billions of these are sent out daily by family members, friends and coworkers to family members, friends and coworkers, clogging inboxes and usually having the exact opposite effect of the original intention. Who today doesn’t go a day or a week without hearing from an unknown source of “low price pharmaceuticals” or a person who has left a “large deposit” in an Argentine bank for a user? It happens all the time, and it’s a problem. But I digress.

Now I didn’t intend on being anyone’s coworker or friend. I intended to use this tool as a teacher. So I gave the order to every student in every class: “Check your email every day for my messages. Read every one of my emails, just like you’re required to read every handout I give you in class. If I call on you to do something in an email, it’s no different than if I asked you in class. Email is an extension of class; you can complain about it, but get used to it.”

Some students did find the order a bit dislikable, but my justification was clear and convincing, especially to parents. “Email might be annoying,” I told them, “but I must admit to you, every opportunity that’s come my way, every source of income, every professional relationship, and nearly every purchase I’ve made over the past three years is a result of, or directly involved, email. Email is the pivot on which colleges and corporations turn on. We need to use it and develop the appropriate writing and related skills to master and make it work for us.”

I then made another rule. “Anything I ask or assign over email is always due at least two calendar days after you receive it; so you’ll never get any ‘trick’ or unfair last minute assignments over it. Don’t fear it, don’t let it get on your nerves, utilize it and master it.”

During the past three years, the transformation in class has been nothing short of astonishing, except for the students (now abut 2 percent) who simply refuse to be included in it, though these are the same students who post to Facebook and Instagram every hour or so.

First, email has allowed me to expand and enrich my instruction on a near instant basis. If I teach a class, and leave something out, or forget a point, I can email it to all my students. As I’ve written in earlier blogs, I create a podcast to accompany almost every lesson, so those get sent out too. And students get it, right to their smartphones and PC’s, and can repeat it again and again until they “get” whatever topic I’m trying to drill into their brains.

And what if I want them to read an article to add on to whatever point I was trying to make, or if I figure might ‘grab’ them in their efforts to remember the material on some way? Well, I simply email it to them. Sometimes if I say something that the kids simply do not believe (“You can’t tell me that George Washington owned over 80 slaves! Was he running a plantation or a concentration camp?”), I’ll immediately turn around and email a blog, photo or article that covers it.

Of course, it’s also useful for meeting and deadline reminders, broadcasting scholarship and summer intern information, and for timely submission of work in case a student knows they’ll miss class due to illness or a field trip. And all the replies and conversations are stored, retrievable and forwardable (like to parents or administrators).

But the best feature of this embracing of email has been the online conversations it has created between my students and I, both as individuals and in groups. If a student needs extra help or support, it’s no problem. A locked classroom door at 4 p.m. doesn’t mean I’m out of orbit; they can simply email me. Give-and-takes take on a life of their own as they’re forwarded and expanded upon; I can include links to other websites and videos to make a point or counter another.

I’ve even started what is called a “weekend thread.” Students can earn class participation points by engaging in these. What I do is usually send out a short article with a commentary and some questions; the article usually has something to do with something that we’ve studied in class that is connected with a current event or issue. I then instruct my students to hit “Reply All” so we can go around our cyber-community sharing ideas on all sorts of things. When one article on municipal Wi-Fi was sent out, students replied consistently and gave many reasons why they would like to see a Wi-Fi cloud activated in Newark. Two or three weeks ago, I circulated an article about how Facebook is panicking over an ever-increasing teen exodus. The replies I received were varied and noteworthy; many students told me that they no longer use the service because, frankly, their grandparents are always looking for them on it.

I also began to notice something else. My students are extremely “school dependent,” meaning that much or all of the constructive “real life” instruction they receive is in school, away from working or otherwise absent parents. So it brought me a bit of satisfaction that students were taking the time to think and act on wider issues instead of just spending every second on Facebook, Netflix, contemplating the opposite sex, or just hanging around.

I knew my email efforts were having an effect last Tuesday when, while walking down the hall on my way out of school around 4 p.m., two students came up to me. “Mr. Kurz,” the first girl began “you sure send out a lot of email. Some of it is interesting, but you’ve got to stop spamming me.” I smiled because her friend immediately chimed in, “Tara, when you open an email of Miley Cyrus shaking her butt, that’s spam. But when Mr. Kurz sends you a link to a lecture at Rutgers, that’s quality information.”

Well, raise a glass to email, and the dissemination of “quality information”!