Google Gmail: Basics
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1/28/2015 Google for Education: Google Gmail: Basics Google Gmail: Basics These Gmail Basics lessons will prepare you with a fundamental understanding of Gmail, its key features and general benefits in the classroom. With a basic understanding of Gmail, you can communicate effectively with your colleagues and students, stay organized, and begin to customize your Gmail experience. You will learn how to: Compose and send messages to parents, students and groups Use labels to organize messages Use Google Hangouts to communicate and collaborate via chat, voice, and video Manage email on the go using your mobile device To start, review the Basics lessons below and conduct all the activities. It is recommended you have another browser or computer screen available to practice the step-by-step exercises.When you are finished, review the Advanced lessons in this Gmail section to gain a deeper understanding of how to use these tools to impact teaching and learning. https://www.google.com/edu/training/gettrained/gmail/basics.html 1/46 1/28/2015 Google for Education: Google Gmail: Basics Lesson 1 Composing and Sending Messages (15 mins) Compose a message To create a new message in Gmail: 1. Click the Compose button. 2. Type the email address of the message recipient in the To:field in the New Message window. More than one recipient can be added. 3. Use Cc: (additional recipients, usually added for awareness rather than action) and Bcc: (blind carbon copy: these recipients will be concealed from others) to add additional recipients. 4. Add a Subject to explain the purpose for your message. 5. Add and style your text in the body of the message. 6. When you are ready to share your message, click Send. https://www.google.com/edu/training/gettrained/gmail/basics.html 2/46 1/28/2015 Google for Education: Google Gmail: Basics Anatomy of a message Contacts Over time, as you send and receive messages, the To:, Cc:, and Bcc: fields will suggest contacts after you type a letter or two of their name or email address. If your school has enabled shared contacts, colleague and student email addresses will also autocomplete. As you email new contacts, they are saved to your Contacts automatically, for future reference. You can click on Mail above the Compose button to see the other Gmail features including your Contacts list. You can manually add contacts one-by-one, or import many at once from your old email system using a specially formatted file. https://www.google.com/edu/training/gettrained/gmail/basics.html 3/46 1/28/2015 Google for Education: Google Gmail: Basics Contact Groups To simplify sending a message to multiple recipients at once, you can create contact groups. Contact groups are personal distribution lists, grouping recipients by affiliation or team (soccer team, Third grade teachers, parents, etc.), or by any other common criteria. Simply type in the name of a contact group, and all of the emails in that group will populate the To: field. No need to type in individual email addresses! Subject In Gmail, the subject line item takes on a special significance. Messages in Conversation View will automatically group according to the subject. It is important to take note of this as you view your inbox to make sure you read all your messages. Formatting Bar In the message body, you have the option to format your text by clicking the on the toolbar at the bottom of the New Message window. Additional options include changing the font style and size, adding bulleted and numbered lists, and the alignment and color of the text. Attachments Clicking the paperclip icon in the formatting bar enables attaching a file from your computer to your message. If you hover over the + sign next to the paperclip icon, you will have additional options like attaching files stored in Google Drive, inserting photos, web links, or emoticons. You can also drag images from your computer and drop them right into the message window. File attachments cannot be larger than 25 megabytes (MB), but you can use the Google Drive integration to add a link to really large files to your message. https://www.google.com/edu/training/gettrained/gmail/basics.html 4/46 1/28/2015 Google for Education: Google Gmail: Basics Save and Discard In the lower right of the New Message window, you can click the trash can icon to delete you draft message. There is no save button. Gmail automatically saves each message as you type, so you will never lose a message you are composing - even if your computer crashes or your Internet connection is lost. If you prematurely close your message before you send it, you can find it by clicking on the Drafts label to the left of the inbox. Reply, Reply All, and Forward When responding to an email you can Reply (to the address in the From: field), Reply All (all of the recipients visible to you), or Forward (specify recipients). Click on the arrow to Reply or the drop-down Lesson 2 Managing and Viewing Messages (5 mins) https://www.google.com/edu/training/gettrained/gmail/basics.html 5/46 1/28/2015 Google for Education: Google Gmail: Basics Conversation View In other email systems, each new message and reply you receive appears individually, in the chronological order that it arrives in your inbox. This approach can make it difficult to follow the flow of a conversation, as it happens over hours, days, or even weeks, with several participants. In Gmail, messages and their replies are displayed together, as long as the subject line is the same, creating a single conversation or thread. In Conversation View, the entire message conversation can be viewed on one screen, in a stack, with the newest message at the bottom. To see all the messages in a conversation, just click the Expand all button. To turn Conversation View on or off: 1. Click the gear in the top right. 2. Select Settings. 3. Scroll down to the Conversation View section (stay in the General tab). 4. Choose Conversation view on or Conversation view off. 5. Click Save changes at the bottom of thepage. Before you turn off Conversation View, give it a try - it can be a powerful feature to help you manage Lesson 3 Using Labels to Organize Messages by Class or Subject (25 mins) You may be familiar with the idea of filing your emails into virtual folders. Gmail does not have folders. Instead, Gmail has a flexible system of labels to organize your messages. Although labels are similar to folders, you can apply multiple labels to each message, each a different context. You can label a message from your principal with labels like ‘Administration’, ‘English Class’, and ‘Grades’, depending on the message contents or any other criteria you choose to organize by. You can create labels for: https://www.google.com/edu/training/gettrained/gmail/basics.html 6/46 1/28/2015 Google for Education: Google Gmail: Basics Conversations with parents Different classes or subjects you teach A committee or team you belong to Email newsletters or mailing lists Change your view to only messages or conversations that have been labeled by clicking the label name to the left of the inbox. https://www.google.com/edu/training/gettrained/gmail/basics.html 7/46 1/28/2015 Google for Education: Google Gmail: Basics Labels vs. Folders The difference between a label and folder, which is present in other email systems, is important to understand. In Gmail, a message can have many different labels in order to organize it for later use. In other email systems, folders are used as places to store messages; therefore, you can typically only store a message in just one. Here is an example of a use of labels: You receive a message from a student about his final research paper and want to label it 'Students' and 'Research Papers'. 1. Apply the Students label, where you keep messages from students, to the message. 2. Apply the Research Projects label, where you keep messages regarding research projects, to the message. 3. To access the message, you can click on either of the labels you applied: Click Students, you will see all the messages that you have tagged with the Students label Click Research Papers, you will see all the messages that are tagged with the Research Paper label With a folder system, you can only file the message in one folder. With labels, you can create several categories of organization and apply multiple labels onto this message. System labels Gmail includes several system labels by default. Each system label serves a distinct and important function. https://www.google.com/edu/training/gettrained/gmail/basics.html 8/46 1/28/2015 Google for Education: Google Gmail: Basics Inbox: A view of all of your conversations that have not been archived; unread message count is in the parentheses Starred: A view of the messages you have marked with a star; assign stars to special conversations or messages, or use them as a visual reminder that you need to follow-up on a message or conversation later; click the star icon to add this label Chats: A view that shows your archived text chat conversations Sent Mail: Shows all of the messages you have sent from Gmail Drafts: As you compose messages, Gmail automatically saves them as drafts; you can view and edit them using this label All Mail: A view of all of the messages you have ever sent or received including Archived messages https://www.google.com/edu/training/gettrained/gmail/basics.html 9/46 1/28/2015 Google for Education: Google Gmail: Basics Spam: Gmail has a robust filtering system to keep unwanted and potentially malicious messages from reaching your inbox; you can also report a message as spam to Google by selecting it in your inbox and clicking the hexagonicon; messages in Spam also automatically delete after 30 days Trash: When you delete a message, it will remain viewable for 30 days by selecting this label; after 30 days, the message is deleted permanently Note: You cannot change the names of these labels, but you can choose which will display in the sidebar above More, in your Settings.