[Vikesrock]

Our team uses a Google Group for almost all of our communication. We have found it works very well for us, but it is not going to solve your problem as you either have to check the group webpage frequently or set it up for email notification and check your email frequently.

Checking email at least daily is typical for a college student and in most jobs so I think the main "solution" to your problem is to find ways to help the students get in this habit. Here are some things off the top of my head that might help:

1) Establish a routine, check your email at the same time every day. When you wake up or before you go to bed are two options that may work well.
2) Set your email page as your homepage. This will remind you to check your mail each time you use the computer.
-An alternate is to add your email to a Google homepage and use that as your homepage
3)Set up a local client to inform you when you have mail. You can either use a mail client like Outlook or Thunderbird or something like Gmail Notifier if available for your webmail.