Email Standards for Teachers

Today I received an email from a colleague who teaches 10th grade. Her email, sent to all 100 staff members of our comprehensive school, is addressed to 'all those concerned' and goes on to describe the detailed mental and academical issues of four pupils in her class, including their names and surnames. Something is not quite right here, as sensitive digital data should only be shared with those directly involved. Another colleague prefers to write long rambling emails to make a point about one of his many grievances, simply to get it off his chest. His mails generally serve no other purpose than to annoy the living daylights out of all recipients.

I suggest this mental check before the send-button is hit:

 • Should this be sent?
• By me?
• Right now?
• Like this?
• To these recipients?
• Really??

Furthermore, read all relevant incoming emails on a daily basis and respond by the next day, even if it's with a simple ' thanks for your email. I will reply in more detail shortly.' Administrators ideally should also read  their emails in the weekend, and reply to urgent matters within 24 hours. Staff can read and reply to weekend emails by Monday end of play.

And last but not least: keep it brief but friendly! If necessary, use emoticons to soften the potentially perceived harshness of your words... A 'thumbs up' symbol beats an exclamation mark, whereas capital letters make it look as IF YOU ARE YELLING, and too many dot dot dots make you seem ..... rather insecure.

Of course some stone age colleagues will keep up the spamming; then just ignore or delete them from your digital life. Or both!

Listen to Me!!!!

Perhaps the four exclamation marks in the title will help. If I shout long enough and loud enough, someone will hear me. The web is full of swimmers, diving for pearls, looking for a place to land briefly, to read something which can be shared. The web is also riddled with opinionated egomaniacs. Especially comical are the graying and wrinkled pensionados, who believe they have nothing but interesting things to say. Surrounded by fellow graying loudmouths, they scribble away about the importance of connectvity, about how the Web changed the world. It certainly changed their world. Instead of having to listen to the yapping of his also graying  wife, the connected graybeard climbs the steps to his little home office and starts yapping  away himself. He fills a quick blog post about his latest digital purchase. This simply has to be shared, his experiences and insights might benefit thousands of followers. And attract new followers! He scans his Network and retweets similar insights. About the importance if being connected. Collaboration via the web. The upcoming webinar in which he will speak. The benefits of online conferencing - although he sure as hell misses the hotelbars and the cute little conference hostesses. No such things online. When his wife calls him down for coffee he counts the amount of re-retweets. Still only two. The lack of interest  leaves him with an open aching space where his stomach used to be. His pale bony fingers tap away on his iPhone: "Internet Ceases to be Efficient." His wife asks him something, but he is oblivious. Copies a quote from a fellow Internet Guru and comments on it, tweets it. The first reply shows up after 1 minute. Without reading it, he leans back, happily thinking about the 35.000 ego-yaps that he tweeted into digital space in the past years. A monumental  achievement. When he has his supper, he sees that 37 followers retweeted his latest ego yap. He is satisfied. Another useful day.