Gmail in the ELL classroom

I can see several uses in the ELL classroom, incorporating the detailed aspects of G-Mail I've just learned about myself. The first thing that jumped out at me was the 'translation' feature, with obvious benefits for Additional Language Learners regarding parent communication. However, beyond that, with the ease in which young people use technology today, I see lots of student-centered/inquiry-based potential for lessons and/or projects based on these features. Starting with having each student create their own email address (if they didn't already have one), and then customize their account (again, as I did in this course), I think could be tremendously helpful for their overall success and confidence. Weekly progress could be made by incorporating one thing at a time, (i.e. using labels, creating a signature/theme, etc...) and the instruction would be very simple and straightforward. Students would feel more part of the larger school community knowing they have the same email server as many of their peers, and would forever have a G-mail email address to use both personally and for the remainder of their academic career.

I too see the translation feature as a great tool for communicating with parents of English Language Learners. We normally have to send everything through a different department to communicate so this could save a lot of time.