NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Laoag City

LESSON 9: COMMUNICATION PLATFORMS

LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end lesson, the students should be able to:
• use the features of Gmail to personalize and customize your Gmail
account;
• practice the use of Google Meet for online meetings;
• use Google Jamboard to collaborate with classmates in real-time;
and
• create, edit, and share a playlist in Youtube.

GMAIL
Gmail is a free email service provided by Google. In many ways, Gmail is like any
other email service: You can send and receive emails, block spam, create an address
book, and perform other basic email tasks. But it also has some more unique features that
help make it one of the most popular online email services.

Creating a Google account is needed to access Gmail because it is just one of the
many services offered by Google to registered users. Signing up for a Google account is
free and easy, and naming your new Gmail address will be a part of the sign-up process.

Gmail features

Gmail offers several useful features to make your email experience as smooth as
possible, including:
• Spam filtering. Spam is another name for junk email. Gmail uses advanced
technologies to keep spam out of your inbox. Most spam is automatically
sent to a separate spam folder, and after 30 days it is deleted.
• Conversation View. An email conversation occurs whenever you send
emails back and forth with another person (or a group of people), often
about a specific topic or event. Gmail groups these emails together by
default, which keeps your inbox more organized.
• Built-in chat. Instead of sending an email, you can send someone
an instant message or use the voice and video chat feature if your
computer has a microphone and/or webcam.
• Call Phone. This feature is similar to voice chat, except that it allows you to
dial an actual phone number to call any phone in the world. It's free to
make a call to anywhere in the United States or Canada, and you can make
calls to other countries at relatively low rates.

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Parts of an Email Address

The username is the name you choose to be identified with for e-mail purposes and that
you have provided to the e-mail host to create your e-mail account.

The domain name is the internet designation for the e-mail host, which may be a private
site, company, organization, or government entity.

Parts of an email message

An email message consists of the following general components:

Headers
The message headers contain information concerning the sender and recipients. The
exact content of mail headers can vary depending on the email system that generated the
message. Generally, headers contain the following information:
• Subject. Subject is a description of the topic of the message and displays in most
email systems that list email messages individually.
• Sender (From). This is the sender's Internet email address. It is usually presumed
to be the same as the Reply-to address, unless a different one is provided.
• Reply-to. This is the Internet email address that will become the recipient of your
reply if you click the Reply button.
• Recipient (To:). First/last name of email recipient, as configured by the sender.

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o Carbon Copy (CC) – people who receive the email for their own
information, but who are not expected to reply. When you press “reply all,”
all of these addresses receive your response. All recipients on the To and
CC lines can see each other
o Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) – people who receive the email but are not listed
as recipients. Senders use the BCC section if they don’t want recipients to
know who else has received the email. They do not receive “reply all”
responses. BCC recipients are invisible to all other recipients.

• Salutation. Typically include both a greeting word or phrase and the recipient’s
name.
• Closing. It is a short sentence or phrase typically includes thanks or sentiments
of appreciation to the recipient and a quick reference to any future actions
requested.
• Signature. Friendly letters might sign off with the sender’s name. But many
business email accounts have signature sections that include the sender’s position,
company and even company logo. These extended signatures are helpful when
reaching out to clients or employees from other companies.
• Attachments. Files that are attached to the message. The attachment could be a
document for review, a picture to share or any other file type. Most email accounts
have limits on the size of attachments, so the sender might add the file to the email
body itself rather than attaching it.
Body
The body of a message contains text that is the actual content. The message body also
may include signatures or automatically generated text that is inserted by the sender's
email system.

Spam Email
It is unsolicited and unwanted junk email sent out in bulk to an indiscriminate recipient
list. Typically, spam is sent for commercial purposes.

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GOOGLE MEET (https://meet.google.com/)

Google Meet is a video conferencing service from Google. It’s a great solution for both
individuals and businesses to meet on audio and video calls.

Anyone with a Google Account can create a video meeting, invite up to 100 participants,
and meet for up to 60 minutes per meeting at no cost.

All editions
• Join calls from anywhere, on any device — just click and meet with no plugins
or downloads needed
• Experience high-quality video and audio across operating systems and devices
— even optimized for low-bandwidths and dark environments
• Integrates seamlessly with Classroom and other Google Workspace for
Education products to make joining and presenting easy
• Add multiple co-hosts to empower others to help set up and facilitate the class

Paid editions
• Save recorded meetings directly to Google Drive and share with students to
help them stay up to date on lessons (available to Education Fundamentals
customers through the end of 2021).
• Track attendance with reports that are automatically sent to the meeting host
• Assign meeting co-hosts before each meeting

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The Google Meet Interface (Controls)

JAMBOARD (https://jamboard.google.com/)

Jamboard is a digital whiteboard that lets you collaborate in real time using either the
Jamboard device (a 55-inch digital whiteboard that works with G Suite services), web
browser or mobile app. It is a Google tool that allows users to creatively organize, format,
and present information through text, images, shapes, and drawings.

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Work together in real time

You can share a jam session with collaborators whether they are on a Jamboard device, mobile
app or web browser. People in up to 50 user sessions can work on a jam at once. When using
a web browser, each Jamboard browser tab counts as a session.

Using a Jamboard device, you can:

• Write and draw with the included stylus.

• Search Google and insert images or webpages.
• Drag and resize text and images with your fingers.
• Sketch a box, star, cat, or dragon. Image recognition technology converts your sketch
into a polished image.

Using Jamboard on a computer, you can use a web browser to:

• Write and draw using a mouse or trackpad.

• Search Google and insert images or webpages.
• Drag and resize text and images.
• Present your jam to a Google Meet video call.
• Open your jam on a Jamboard device.

Using the Jamboard mobile app, you can:

• Write and draw using your touchscreen.

• Drag and resize text and images with your fingers.
• Open your jam on a Jamboard device.

The Google Jamboard Interface

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YOUTUBE

YouTube is a free video sharing website that makes it easy to watch online videos. You
can even create and upload your own videos to share with others. Originally created in
2005, YouTube is now one of the most popular sites on the Web, with visitors watching
around 6 billion hours of video every month.

Why use YouTube?

• A sheer number of videos you can find. On average, 100 hours of video are
uploaded to YouTube every minute, so there's always something new to watch
• It's all about user-generated content. Instead of videos from major TV networks
and movie studios, you'll find amazing and creative videos made by people just
like you. And YouTube isn't a one-way street—you can jump in, record and share
your own videos, and become a part of the community.

Is YouTube appropriate for everyone?

With so much content on YouTube, it's important to note that not all YouTube videos
are appropriate for everyone, especially children under the age of 13. However, there
are tools you can use, such as Safety Mode, to restrict the types of videos you can view.
We'll talk more about this in our lesson on using parental controls.

Creating and Sharing Playlists

Playlists are a great way to organize and share the stuff you find on YouTube.

To create a playlist:
1. Locate and select the Save to button below the video player. A menu will appear.
From here, you can choose to add the video to an existing playlist or create a new
one. In our example, we'll choose Create new playlist.

2. Type the playlist name, choose the desired privacy level for the playlist, and
choose Create.

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3. The playlist will be created. You can now add videos to the playlist at any time.
To view or manage the playlist, you can select it from the Guide.

Subscribing to YouTube channels

Channels are one of the coolest parts of YouTube, providing quick access to all of the
videos from the same creator. Subscribing to channels is a bit like creating your own TV
network, but with just the videos you want to watch.

Whenever you see the Subscribe button, simply click it to subscribe to that channel.

Privacy settings

As we mentioned earlier in this tutorial, YouTube is operated by Google. And like Google,
YouTube will keep a record of everything you search for and view on YouTube. The
main reason for this is to provide you with better search results and video
recommendations.

Other privacy settings

By default, any videos you like and the playlists you create will be visible to everyone on
YouTube. If you'd prefer to keep this information private, go to the History and
privacy settings, check the boxes next to these options, and select Save

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References

GCFGlobal (2022). Introduction to Gmail.

https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/gmail/introduction-to-gmail/1/
Google (2023). Jamboard. https://support.google.com/jamboard/answer/7424836?hl=en
GCFGlobal (2023). What is Youtube. https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/youtube/what-is-
youtube/1/

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