E-Mails - doncha just love 'em?
'Has anyone seen the Charles Dickens video which was in the office? If you've borrowed it, please let me know – I need it on Tuesday afternoon'.
'All staff are reminded that predicted grades for Year 10 students must be e-mailed in spreadsheets to the school office by noon tomorrow'
'50% off all study guides!! This offer must end soon.'
'Sorry. Won't be in today. Stomach bug'
Oh, if only they were all this brief.
Many teachers find that e-mail is the bane of their lives, especially if they do not have access to a PC in their classrooms, or if their computer systems are particularly slow. Modern schools, like modern business, use e-mail a lot. This is especially true in larger schools, where face-to-face communication is often difficult to achieve. It is also inevitable when teachers (and management) do so much work outside school hours or at home. Even during working hours, many teachers cannot use mobile phones in class, and do not have landlines in their classrooms, so e-mail is used for many matters which would be handled by a quick phone call in business.
Different teachers, however, have very different perspectives on e-mail, and handle it in very different ways. To read how three different (fictional) teachers regard e-mail, click here.
To learn how best to use e-mail - and this advice applies to all teachers - click here.
If you send a lot of e-mails within the school, or if you can influence the behaviour of others, then you can learn not just to cope with e-mails, but to actually reduce or resolve a lot of the problems. To learn now, click here.