Google email in the classroom

One thing that I have found to be very useful is creating contacts when using gmail.  I have actually used the chat feature of contacts with parents of students.  In addition, I did not know about the Google translate capabilities in Gmail.  I wish I would have known that a few years ago when I had a student whose parents only spoke Spanish.  When communicating with them, I had to hunt down a bi-lingual teacher in the building to help me compose a note home to them.  The translate feature would have been wonderful to have.  I also liked how they talked about using Gmail to create pen pals from other schools.  That is something I would love to try in the future.  Lastly, I learned about creating labels from within Gmail.  That makes things so much more organized rather than just using the folders feature.  I plan to use this going forward to be able to separate emails based on students, teachers, topics, etc.