Do:

• Include pertinent information in your signature

  • Name, role, location, email, and phone number are all helpful - especially when contacting families or people outside your school.

• Use Bcc when emailing large groups of people

  • If you don't want to swamp everyone's inbox with replies, put email addresses in the Bcc field (rather than the To field).

  • If it's important for people to collaborate, use Google Docs or Forms to collect ideas and responses, and save yourself managing many email replies.

  • Make sure you only copy people who really need to read the email.

• Use inline hyperlinks for web addresses

  • e.g. "Please read the latest information on my website to find out more."

  • Don't paste in the full URL (e.g. https://www.google.com/) as this is frustrating and unhelpful to anyone using accessibility or screen-reading tools.

Don't:

• Use excessive formatting

  • While fancy backgrounds, curly fonts, and bright colors can liven up posters and flyers, they create the wrong feeling in emails.  Stick to "businesslike" fonts and clean formatting to present the correct impression, and keep your emails readable.

• Use photos of other people as your avatar

  • Sometimes your first contact with someone can be through email.  It's helpful for them to see what you look like and can give the wrong impression if you use a famous actor or cartoon character.

• Shoot from the lip

  • Never send angry or flippant emails - if necessary, save your response in your Drafts and return to it later.

  • Remember that all emails are subject to public disclosure and that we are dealing with members of our community.

Each month the Department of Technology will be offering after school professional development opportunities to support all certificated staff. Each opportunity will incorporate a session surrounding instructional technology tools or concepts and a session surrounding a Skyward topic. Each voluntary workshop will be held in the Board Room of the James P. Fugate Administration Building from 3:15pm - 4:15pm and 4:15pm - 5:15pm, no registration required.  

At September's offering the Instructional Technology Team will be leading learning around Google Slides, Docs & Sheets while Client Services will support Skyward use by sharing information on how to access student information and create seating charts. 

Visit the After School PD webpage to see what each session will entail.