LZHS prides itself on being on being up to date on technology, such as P.E.D use in classrooms and allowing cell phones in passing periods. However, the school does not allow its students to use their emails during school, even for educational purposes. This must be corrected if LZHS wishes to continue moving forward in the world as technology progresses.
In a time when many students are dependent on technology to complete day-to-day assignments, email is a necessary tool for communication. Many students use their emails as a pseudo-flash drive because it is much harder to lose an email than a jump drive. The policies at LZHS have limited this possibility and made it harder for students to share assignments and communicate effectively.
Unlike in past years where email has been used for social purposes, the majority of people nowadays use Facebook or other popular networking sites for social communication, and primarily rely on email for formal correspondence and academic purposes.
As time changes, so must policies, and the rule against student email use has become antiquated and out of date.
Not only do students use email for their own reasons, LZHS requires students to have a working email to sign up for things like Naviance, a college and career planning website. If they support the use of email for educational purposes, they must allow students to have access to the resources the staff is promoting to the students.
Upperclassmen applying to universities use email to contact colleges, and being able to access email during school is crucial to creating the best application possible to get into the schools they want. Universities have started using electronic applications to cut down on paper, and being able to email applications is helpful to
Many universities and even high schools, such as Peoria High School and Prospect High School, utilize this type of email. This allows for much more freedom to students, while still keeping communications controlled and geared towards education.
The administration created a Google account for all students using their student I.D. numbers. LZHS either needs to properly teach students how to use Google Docs, or allow students to access their emails during school hours.
A good option for the school could be to enable the Gmail functions on the LZ95 student Google accounts and have students use their school emails rather than a separate personal email for use in school. This would discourage social usage and allow for the school to monitor for inappropriate usage.
Despite all the uses for school purposes, the LZHS administration maintains that students become distracted by email.
“Physically, we can allow students to access their email, but it would be so challenging to monitor whether they’re using it for academic reasons,” Marion Clauser, technology support, said.
Although the administration created Google account for students, many students remain uninformed of these accounts or how to properly use them.
Google Docs operates differently than Microsoft Office Word, and to properly utilize all the different tools available through this program takes a certain amount of instruction not currently provided to most students.
Google Docs, while useful, is not an adequate replacement for email and does not function the same way. LZHS not only needs to teach it’s students how to use Google Docs, they also must allow students to access their emails.
LZHS needs to allow their students more freedom to communicate and stop restricting tools that can be properly harnessed to aid learning.