Teacher Help

Welcome to the Teacher Help Section for Gaggle.

Administrator's Guide
If you would like to see detailed information about setting up and using the Gaggle email service, you may download an Adobe Acrobat version of the Administrator's Guide.

Download the newest version of the Administrator's Guide.

Quick Start Guides
The Teacher Quick Start Guide offers two handouts that explain how teachers and students can quickly get started using Gaggle.

Training Videos
The Gaggle Training Videos are a great way for new educators to learn about Gaggle. There are over 30 short videos that can be streamed right to your desktop. Most are less than 5 minutes long and include topics such as Adding Users, Blocked Messages, Blogs, Homework Drop Boxes, Digital Lockers and Administrative Features.

Gaggler Archives
The Gaggler Archives contain past issues of our newsletter with lots of great tricks, tips and ideas for curriculum projects.

Frequently Asked Questions
The Teacher's Frequently Asked Questions is a great place to learn more about using the Gaggle system.

Importing Student Lists / Student Setup Program
If you have a large list of students to set up, you may want to download the Student Setup Program.

This program takes a list of student names and creates the text necessary to import users. It creates a user name based upon the student name and creates a random password. The formated text can then be used to quickly import new users.

Download the Macintosh version of the Student Set Up program.
Download the Windows version of the Student Set Up program.

Download a custom login page
This is a set of example files that make up a login page that you can put on your own web site. You can customize it with your school's logo or a special message.

Download a zip file containing the example login page.

If you have a Custom Domain or Sub Domain name, these login screens can be changed so that users can sign in with just their user name. They would not need to enter their full email address. It is very simple to customize. The download contains all of the necessary instructions.

How do I setup Gaggle as a portal for logins to other systems?
Portal links are links in the Jump To Menu that allow users to click out into other systems that their school or district might have access to. These links only show up if configured by a School Admin or higher. Additional information can be added to each link to identify or login users to the particular system the link points to. In this way the Gaggle portal feature is like a simple Single Sign-on feature.
To learn more about Portal links download the Portal Links How-To document.

Student Online Safety Pledge
This is a sample document that can be downloaded and used as a Student Online Safety Pledge. The file is in Rich Text Format (RTF). It will open with any word processing program such as Microsoft Word, iWork, Adobe Acrobat or Star Office.

We also have a Spanish version of the Online Safety Pledge.

Single Sign-on to Gaggle from Other Systems
Your IT department can setup single sign-on to Gaggle from other systems such as Edline, SchoolFusion or other portals. Please contact us for assistance.

System Status Blog
If you are looking for information about the current operational status of Gaggle, please check the System Status Blog. This page will detail any mail delays, new spam threats, speed issues and system outages. In addition, this page will announce each new code release. New versions of Gaggle are released every month and include many bug fixes and new features. Check here to learn what's new. You may even want to subscribe to the System Status Blog as an RSS feed.

Curriculum Contest
Gaggle is conducting a monthly Curriculum Contest. This is your chance to share what you've been doing with Gaggle to enhance your students' learning. You're probably doing amazing things and don't even realize it. Share your stories with us and win prizes!

General Suggestions
Here are some General Suggestions that will make using Gaggle more effective for your school.

Are you a Trainer or Workshop leader?
We want to support the people who train teachers in the use technology. If you are doing a workshop which covers the subject of email, we would like to help.

Check out our Resources for Workshop Leaders & Trainers