Module No.

and Title : Module 2 Communication and Microsoft Office Lesson

Applications
No. and Title : C9- Communication
L1- Using email
L2- Opening your mailbox
L3- Organising your mail
L4- Email etiquette
L5- Sending an email
L6- Receiving an email
L7- Managing your contacts
L8- Sending a file using email
L9- Receiving and saving a file using email
L10- Using the internet
L11- Opening a website from a URL
L12- Using a search engine

Learning Outcomes:
In this chapter you will learn about:
 open your mailbox
 organise your mail
 use email etiquette
 send an email
 send a file as an email attachment
 receive an email
 receive and save a file as an email attachment
 reply to an email
 forward an email
 copy an email to another mail recipient
 manage your email contact lists
 locate and download information from the internet
 use the internet to locate information on a specified website
 use the internet to search for information using a search engine.

Introduction:

In this chapter, we will talk about the basic principles of email. Keep
Fighting! And Enjoy Learning!

Activity:

 Explain what is the importance of Email?

Analysis:

 How to send Email? Give the step to create an email.

Abstraction:
9.1 USING EMAIL

Email is short for ‘electronic mail’ and is a method of sending text-based

messages from one computer to another or using mobile phones. Email is usually
received instantaneously by the recipient’s mail provider and frequently waits there
until the user accesses their mailbox. Some mail providers will allow users to have
their messages forwarded to their mobile phones. All mailboxes have a storage limit
and it can be very easy to fill your mailbox. If this happens, you will not be able to
receive the messages sent to you.

To use email you must have a mailbox with an email address. These can be
web based like Windows Live Mail or use an internally hosted mailbox, which is
common in many schools. For this chapter, I have created a new email account with
Windows Live Mail. Although I will use this for the exercises in this chapter, most of
the skills are transferable to other email editors and the underlying structures are the
same.

9.2 OPENING YOUR MAILBOX

To open your mailbox, go to the Windows taskbar, usually found along the
bottom of the screen. Select the icon for Windows Live Mail (it looks like a white
envelope) and click the left mouse button on this icon to open the email editor.

Your email editor will open and look similar to this. You may need to enter
your email address and password in some systems.
9.3 ORGANIZIG YOUR MAIL

At the moment the mailbox is empty, but it will soon fill with a flood of
messages. These will need organising into logical groups. You need to decide on the
groups you want and then create and name folders to match these groups.
9.4 EMAIL ETIQUETTE

When using email, use these basic rules to help you to gain respect of other online
users:

 Do not type using all capital letters – this is read as shouting in an email.
 Do not leave the subject line blank.
 Do not use coloured text and backgrounds. These are more difficult to read
and can take up a lot of space in an email inbox.
 When sending a number of people the same email use ‘bcc’ rather than ‘cc’ as
it protects their email addresses from being passed on and reduces the chance
of them getting junk mail.
 Do not forward chain letters and similar types of email as these can take up
valuable space in an email inbox.
 Do not give out any personal details like phone numbers, passwords, bank
account details, etc. in emails.
 Email communication is private. In most countries, you are likely to be
breaking the law if you post the content of an email to you in a public place
without the sender’s permission.
 Compress or zip email attachments where possible before sending them. This
will allow larger documents or other files to be sent quickly and take up less
storage space in the inbox.
9.5 SENDING AN EMAIL

Make sure that you type the address accurately, carefully checking spelling
and punctuation. One error in your typing will mean that the message will not be sent
to the correct person. This person will not be aware that you have ever sent them a
message. If you have contacts that you email often, add them to your contacts list
(sometimes called an address book), and select them from there. This reduces the
chance of errors when typing the email address. Clicking the left mouse button on the
icon opens the contacts list.

If you wish to send a copy of the message to another person, add their name
to the Cc: (carbon copy) box. Again, if the person’s name is already in your contacts
list, use the icon to find and add their email address. For this task, a copy of the
message will be sent to [email protected] so include this address in
the carbon copy box.
9.6 RECIVING AN EMAIL
9.7 MANAGING YOUR CONTACTS
 New contacts can be added, existing contact details edited and contacts
deleted from this window. You can also organise your contacts into groups. You can
use these groups to send a single email to all of the people in a group at the same time
by selecting the group name rather than contact name. You can create multiple
groups and contacts can belong to more than one group. Groups can be deleted by
right mouse clicking on the group name then selecting Delete Category from the
drop-down menu. Deleting a group does not delete the contacts in it and removing a
contact from a group does not delete the contact from your address book. Your
contact details can be shared with others using this system, but this is not
recommended.
9.8 SENDING A FILE USING EMAIL
9.9 RECEIVING AND SAVING A FILE USING EMAIL
9.10 USING THE INTERNET

The internet is a wide area network, made from a number of individual

computers and networks linked together to form one large network. It is worldwide
and can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection. Anyone can add
information to or have a server on the internet. This means that some information on
the internet is incorrect, biased or unreliable, although other information is reliable
and factual.

There are two ways of locating information from the internet. The first is by
accessing sites that you know about using their URL. The second method is finding
the information that you are looking for, but you do not know where to look. This
method involves using a search engine.

9.11 OPENING A WEBSITE FROM A URL

9.12 USING A SEARCH ENGINE

A search engine is useful if you do not know the URL of a website or if you
want information and do not know where to look. There are many search engines that
appear to use different methods, but the underlying function of all search engines is
the same. They take the words that you enter as a search string and look up in their
database of webpages those that appear to match your search string. The more detail
that you put into your search string the more likely the search engine is to find the
results you require.
 All of these options could be used to find the site or sites that you require.
Look carefully at the URLs and brief descriptions of each site to help you decide
which site or sites might be more suitable for you.

Search engines can also be used in a website to search only within that site.
These are sometimes used in the practical examinations. If you need to use one of
these, take care to enter meaningful search strings, taken directly from the
information in the question paper. Each search engine works in a different manner
and instructions on saving and downloading are always given.

Application:

1. What you have learnt in this lesson? Make a short discussion.

References:

IGCSE
Information and Communication Technology
Graham Brown and David Watson
Congratulations! You did a great job for this lesson! You can now proceed to the next
lesson.