CT07_Email_Nelson_2009

Computer Technology Workshop (July 2009) Standard 07: Electronic Mail Lesson Plan

D. Nelson, July 2009
 * Email Collaboration**


 * Purpose**: This lesson will help students use email to collaborate with other students. The focus of this lesson is electronic mail (standard 07) with specific attention to creating, sending, receiving, replying, and forwarding messages (objective 0701). It will also help them manage attachments (objective 0702) and work in teams to apply simple information theory.


 * Grading**: There are 100 points available for this assignment.
 * Artifacts: The student’s product will represent 80 points. The instructor will provide a list of email assignments to complete. Each student will need to collaborate with others in order to complete their assignments.
 * Assessment: There will also be a quiz worth 20 points. It will test how well the student understands the concepts presented in the lesson. The questions for the quiz are given with the assignment to reinforce their importance.


 * Materials**: To complete this lesson plan the following resources need to be available.
 * Have this lesson available to students.
 * Make sure the students have access to their own email account to perform these tasks.
 * Enter the quiz questions into your test system.


 * Introduction**: Businesses use collaborative applications (email, blogs, wikis, calendars, etc.) to improve the performance of workgroups. These applications are tools to get things done and some tools are better at some tasks than others. This assignment will focus on the email tool to understand the terms, use the features, and discuss some issues of electronic communication. As part of the assignment, students are expected to learn to follow up on any email sent. An email may not reach its destination or may not be noticed. The person you send something to may get sick, quit their job, or ignore your message. The rest of this document will list the concepts to learn and steps to perform.


 * Claude Shannon**: Dr. Shannon is considered the father of digital communication and information theory. He provided a mathematical framework that is used on cell phones, computers, and the internet. In 1932, he graduated from high school. In 1936, he earned bachelor’s degrees from the University of Michigan in both mathematics and electrical engineering. In 1938, he published a master’s paper which may be the most important of our time. In 1940, he earned graduate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in mathematics, computer science, and electrical engineering. In 1948, he published an important paper with the first public reference to the word “bit” for binary digit. In 1949, he published an important paper that made cryptography a science.
 * “Claude E. Shannon”, The Tech from MIT, Volume 121, Issue 8, Friday, March 2, 2001,
 * ([])
 * “Claude Elwood Shannon”, Wolfram Research, by Rethnakaran Pulikkoonattu,
 * ([])
 * Q. Who is the father of information theory? A. Dr. Shannon.
 * Q. What does the word “bit” mean? A. Binary digit.


 * Email Terms**: A mail system transmits envelopes that contain written documents and other objects to a specific destination. Electronic mail is also known as e-mail or email. Sending information by email allows the sender and receiver to manage their messages because they are stored on a server. Having messages on the server means most people can access them from any browser, at any time you want, and save important messages to permanent folders. Email is transported across the internet with a message envelope but you may never see one. The message itself has two sections (header & body). The message “header” has fields that hold values. The message “body” is where you put the bulk of the instructions and information. Some people setup “signature” lines to be placed at the end of each body. Electronic objects can be attached to messages. Attachments are usually the output of some other application.
 * Q: How many sections does an email message have? A. 2.
 * Q: What section has the individual fields? A. Header.
 * Q: What section has the main message? A. Body.
 * Q: How to we send other files with email messages? A. Attachments.


 * Header Terms**: The message header is made up of fields with a name and a value. The email system you use will display some of the field names and field values. Become familiar with the following names because you will either set their values or reference their values. We will discuss these terms in class and you should research those you are not sure of.
 * Q. Which field holds the unique key for a message? A. Message-ID
 * Q. Which field holds the origin time stamp? A. Date.
 * Q. Which field holds the origin email address? A. From.
 * Q. Which field holds primary destination addresses? A. To.
 * Q. Which field holds secondary destination addresses? A. CC.
 * Q. Which field holds hidden destination addresses? A. BCC.
 * Q. Which field holds respond destination addresses? A. Reply-To.
 * Q. Which field holds a one line message summary? A. Subject.


 * Assignment 1**: Each student must send an email to the instructor that follows a specific format and that answers the given questions. The “To” field should hold the email address of the instructor as presented in class. The “Subject” field should include the following words “Email Assignment 1”. How old was Claude Shannon when he earned his high school diploma, bachelor degrees, and graduate degrees. How old was Claude Shannon when he published his three pivotal papers and what were they called? Provide a brief description of Digital Communication. Provide a brief description of Information Theory. There are 10 points possible for this assignment if it is completed correctly and received by the instructor before the deadline. The instructor will respond by email with your points. If you have not received a response then follow up.


 * Assignment 2**: Each student will join a workgroup of 3 to 5 students. Each workgroup will select a group name, one person to break deadlocks, one person to send their messages, one person to receive their messages, and an object. The object must be a person, place or thing that exists on earth. The first step is to form a group and send the instructor an email. Have the designated sender create the message so their email address appears in the “From” field. Enter the email address of the instructor in the “To” field. Enter the words “Email Assignment 2” in the “Subject” field. If possible, enter the email address of the designated receiver in the “Reply-To” field. The body of the message should state the group names, the members, their roles and the object chosen. There are 10 points possible for this assignment if it is completed correctly and received by the instructor before the deadline. The instructor will respond by email with your points. If you have not received a response then follow up.


 * Assignment 3**: Each group will work to determine what the other groups have selected as their object and answer questions from other groups about their object. All communication about the objects must be by email, from the designated sender of one group, to the designated receiver of the other group. A guess must be phrased in the form of a question that can be answered with a yes or no. One group can only ask 20 questions about another group’s object so be careful what you ask and how you word it. Information Theory you can help you form questions that eliminate half the remaining objects. (A programmer uses a similar method for a binary search.) Enter “Question #” into the subject field of each guess with the actual number replacing the “#” sign. Enter “Answer #” into the subject field of each response, with the actual number replacing the “#” sign. The body of the message must state the group names involved and the question or answer. The instructor will determine a time to stop and report results. Each group must prepare a spreadsheet to describe the email traffic concerning their chosen object. Show the names of the other groups, how many questions they asked, how many responses you gave, and if they guessed your object. Save the spreadsheet and send it as an attachment to the instructor. Enter the words “Email Assignment 3” in the “Subject” field. There are 40 points possible for your group if it is completed correctly and received by the instructor before the deadline. (The points will be awarded to all members who participated fully.) The instructor will respond by email with another attachment. If you have not received a response then follow up.


 * Final Steps**: Each student will send a message to their instructor with a document attached. Use a word processor to make a small document. (1) Write a short paragraph to describe the part you played in the workgroup assignment. (2) Tell me something about email privacy. For example, does email travel across the internet as plain text or is it encrypted. (3) Write a short paragraph to describe other experience you have had using digital communications (cell phones, texting, instant messaging, email, blogs, etc.). (4) Tell me something about digital privacy. For example, how are digital predators scanning digital communications on the internet? Save the document and send it as an attachment to the instructor. Enter the words “Email Assignment 4” in the “Subject” field. There are 20 points possible if it is completed correctly and received by the instructor before the deadline. The instructor will respond by email with another attachment. If you have not received a response then follow up. Before the deadline, you must complete your work, turn it in, and take the quiz.