Tutorial: Creating and Managing a Listserv with Google Groups
You have options should you want to create a listserv for your class or group. Your school may have this capability through the server infrastructure the school maintains and there are several ways to establish a listserv by taking advantage of free or low cost online services. Our goal here is to offer a description for how to create and manage a listserv using one such online service.
A Google Group can be used as a mailing list or listserv, but like so many of the newer online social applications, Groups offers a wider range of functions. In addition to forwarding email from members to members, participation in a group provides access to the archive of email messages, documents, calendars and other resources shared by the group. Our focus here will be limited to the description of the mailing list feature. Our decision to focus on Google Groups rather than some other system was based on the easy access to this service (Google Groups is considered part of Google Apps for Primary and Secondary Education) and because the Google Groups app offers a straight-forward management system allowing control of participants and content visibility. We realize that educators are particularly sensitive to online security issues and so the ability to impose limits is quite important. We have organized this tutorial into two segments - establishing a group and functioning as a member of a group. The first segments is focused on the activities of the group administrator or manager and the second segment on the user experience. Each segment provides access to a video tutorial so we can take you through basic processes in a step by step fashion. Note that we make no effort to explore all of the options that are available, but focus on a limited number of features we assume will be of greatest interest to classroom teachers. We highlight a few of the features in the following comments.
Establishing a Group. Creating a group is very easy. Assuming you already have a Google account (because you use another Google service or have created an account because you wanted to manage a Google Group), you bring the Google Groups page up in your browser. Once on the page, you select the Create button and follow the instructions.
Setting up a Group establishes you as the administrator or manager. There are some basic questions to answer. The first is what you will call the group. The name you select will become part of the submission address for the group (e.g., groupname@googlegroups.com) and the web address for the group (http://groups.goggle.com/group/groupname). We have used the phrase submission address elsewhere - this is the email address members of a listserv send an email to so that the email will then be made available to all members of the group. Members of a group may not actually receive all messages sent to the group as forwarded email. They may go to the Group web page to view the messages instead (or in addition). Which it is will be another decision that needs to be made. Probably the most important decisions will be related to what we collectively describe as security - who will become a member of the group and who will have access to group generated content. Again, these are decisions to be made. The most conservative approach puts the manager in control of who can belong to the group and limits access to any content generated by the group to group members.
A brief video tutorial on how to set up a group [video]
Participating in the Listserv. The second video tutorial is intended to highlight a few characteristics of participating as a member of a mailing list. One distinction you might look for is the difference between sending a message to members of the group and participating in a group discussion. If you create an email message and send the message to the group, this message will be made available to all members of the group. Depending on how settings have been configured, it may be sent as an email to each member of the group or be available for viewing on the group web site. The message will not arrive in the mail box of the sender (the sender could connect to the web site if he or she wanted to see the message as made available to members of the group). If a different member of the group received this email and wanted to react to the message, the best approach would not be to start from scratch and send a new message to the submission address, but rather to use the reply feature of the email client. By replying, the second user would assure that the response would be linked to the original message forming a strand or discussion strand. Other group members could then easily follow the discussion as members of the group interact around what these members have defined as a topic or theme. If a group generates a lot of activity, the organization of this activity into strands makes it much easier to follow the multiple topics that members of the group want to discuss.
You might also note that each user can also exert some control over how they experience the group. At the basic level, an individual invited to become a group member does not have to accept the invitation. This would not likely be an issue for a class listserv, but could be an issue in other situations when groups are formed for specific purposes and individuals are invited as members because someone thinks they may be interested in the topic. This approach - invitation and acceptance - is common to many of the newer online social services. The individual user can control other aspects of the experience. Some may not want to receive email at all and instead prefer to visit the group web site when they want to catch up on group activity. How each user receives content is determined by a setting under the control of the user.
A brief video tutorial on adding members to a group.
Google Groups for Educators. While we are describing Google Groups, we should also note that many groups take a much more open approach and some of these groups may be of interest to educators. There is a search box on the Google Groups site and you can search (e.g., history teacher) to see what you can find. We would recommend you take a look at the Google for Educators Discussion Group. You can view the content amassed by this group without being a member and you can ask to join the group if you want to contribute. The group has close to 12,000 members and generates a lot of activity so, no, becoming a member of this group will not result in hundreds of emails arriving in your mail box each day. The configuration of this group stores all messages on the web site.