For example, our Advanced Web Design class has their own working environment and email accounts. They have communications to the outside world and communicaitons with eachother, but not other students. Incidentally, there are some fantastic features that are both tremendous tools for teachers and great for discouraging abuse and encouraging good housekeeping. For example, every message has a complete history of everything that happens to it. The ability to read that history is given to teachers, but not students.
Teachers can see who reads and forwards messages.
So if a teacher sends a message to a conference about an assignment, they know who read it and who didn't. If a student sends a chain letter or other type if mail that constitutes a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy in September, it's entirely possible they could be caught days, weeks, or even months later. A single copy resides on the server and is attributed to the originator. 20 or 200 pointers are made from the recipients back to the message. Any time a person wants to read that message, it is origiinal they are reading and adding to the history.