My district is exploring providing students with email accounts, and I'm leading a subcommittee on exploring options and developing policies/regulations recommendations to support the initiative.
Does your district provide student email accounts? If so, what soft/webware are you using? What hurdles have been overcome? What lessons have been learned?
I have used both gaggle.net and epals.com. Both are filtered and monitored, have chat rooms that you can set up, file storage, and blogs. I just switched to epals.com because gaggle.net is advertising heavy unless you pay to have the adds removed.
Two weeks ago I began using Gaggle.Net email accounts with my students (the subscription version) and have been completely impressed. Too many of my students didn't believe that "big brother" was watching them -- three days into using the accounts I have stopped having to review "flagged" e-mails. The students quickly caught on. Additionally, they have begun corresponding with me in ways that I did not invision -- sharing their personal lives. What a benefit!
You can access a lot of information by visiting the Gaggle website.