LGfL (London Grid for Learning) offer a wide variety of services for schools, including a Microsoft-hosted ‘London Mail’ for use by children in schools. This includes features such as ‘safe mail’ where you can control who the user can send and receive email with.
The only problem is that it requires children to remember their USO login details to access it, which is not the most memorable string of letters and numbers in the world. My experience is that email for children is therefore often underused in the classroom.
At our school we’re running a trial classroom with an emphasis on more independent learning. Part of this was to email work to groups of children that they can then access at one of the classroom iMacs. But with email access requiring putting in obscure usernames and passwords and visiting obtuse websites, it never really happened.
Whilst perusing LGfL’s website, I discovered a new section about London Mail where they promised access for smartphones and with Outlook, so I contacted Atomwide and they sent me the login details.
It requires Outlook IMAP access, which can be done natively in Apple’s Mail, and was very easy to sort out. Now one child just has to log onto one of the iMacs and open Mail – easy!
For this interested, here are the server details:
- username: uso.account@lgflmail.net
- Incoming hostname: imap.outlook.com
- Outgoing hostname: amsprd0102.outlook.com
Primary ICT 