Andover Public Schools consolidated all student and staff emails onto the Microsoft platform over the summer, prompting mixed reactions from students and faculty.
According to Paul Puzzanghera, chief information officer of the Town of Andover, the process of transitioning to Outlook involved a multi-week procedure of “seeding” student mailboxes by copying their contents from Gmail to Outlook. Addresses were then updated from @k12.andoverma.us to @student.andoverma.us. Google applications remain in use, with the exception of Gmail and Google Calendar.
Many students were displeased with the change, having been accustomed to using Gmail. “Gmail is easier to use than Outlook,” stated sophomore Gavin Cleary. “Everything is right in front of you, and I’m used to it. I mean, Gmail was working fine, I don’t really know why we changed it.”
Vivian Tang, senior, agreed. “I’m a little reluctant to switch to Outlook,” she said. “I’ve been used to having all my emails and accounts in one place. Now, I have to switch between two different websites just to look at emails.”
Opinions among faculty are more varied. Bettyann Iannuccilli, who teaches chemistry, enjoyed the switch. For her, it has made getting in touch with students easier. “Before, some students sent their emails to my Gmail account, and since I didn’t use Gmail, I wouldn’t see their emails,” she explained. “Now that everyone is using Outlook, I’m able to receive all of my students’ emails.”
Dr. Derek Voigt, orchestra director, stated that he likes Outlook’s accessibility and the desktop app’s compatibility on all of his devices. He does, however, miss having a @k12.andoverma.us account, which “made [him] appear as a teacher at an accredited institution, as opposed to just an employee in some branch of the government” with his current @andoverma.us address.
Voigt also believes that there are certain features of Outlook that could be improved, namely grouping messages. “It’s often difficult to find an email from an individual person within a message chain,” he said. “For example, when I send a group message out about musical instrument rentals, it goes to hundreds of people. However, all the responses go to an individual message chain, and it’s very difficult to find a single person’s message within everybody’s responses.”
Jennifer Starr, executive director of technology integration and digital literacy, explained that the primary purpose of the switch to Outlook was to bolster security. Outlook works well with single-sign on, which enables applications and systems to interact with each other more securely. “If you think of it like a house with lots of different doors, that’s more doors you have to lock at night,” she said. “Whereas, if there’s just one door to take care of, you can take really good care of that.”
Additional reasons included cost and efficiency. Puzzanghera stated that previously, staff had both a @k12.andoverma.us and a @andoverma.us address. Teachers were using separate Outlook and Google calendars, which made it impossible to schedule meetings between faculty.
Since the transition to Outlook, there has been some confusion regarding signing into school accounts. “When I signed into Microsoft, I didn’t know that there was a single sign-on option, so I signed in with my @student.andoverma.us email,” said Tang. “Then, it said that they couldn’t find an account associated with this email. It took many times, but I eventually found the single sign-on button, and I was able to get in.”
“I think some students and teachers had trouble with logging in to their accounts after using ‘Sign in with Google’,” said Starr. “They needed to log in and switch their email addresses to their new @student.andoverma.us accounts.”
If students are having trouble with accessing their accounts, email infosys@andoverma.us.
