Student email is always a scary thing. There is so much junk out there that we as educators must shield our students from (yes, this sentence ends with a preposition). There are so many benefits to student email, including learning how to communicate, collaboration, etc. For many Web 2.0 tools, registration is required- and an email address is required for registration.

Two good (and FREE) solutions which allow for a very controlled email environment are as follows:

ePals

• Previously a commercial product, student email is now free here
• Teachers can open the email to the internet or limit it to other classmates
• Teacher gets a copy of every email sent and received
• Attachments are automatically flagged and cannot be sent/received until the teacher approves it
• Vulgarity is filtered and any message with vulgarity is flagged for the teacher to act upon it
• Includes internal chat
  

Gaggle

• Content filtering and blocking
• Ad-supported
• Multiple levels of access for a variety of roles
• Includes blogging and chat (walled garden)