Email Manners, Please!

I care a lot about email etiquette.  By following a few very simple guidelines, we could all save ourselves numerous emails and significant time reading, responding to, sorting, and searching them.

I first became passionate about this topic a long time ago, after a presentation by Leslie O'Flahavan, owner of E-WRITE, at a conference in Connecticut.  She made a great impact on me, not just with her points, but with her examples.  She showed us examples of terrible, emails that mirrored ones that I was seeing at the office every day.

The conference was well over ten years ago and I no longer have the notes I took that day, but some of her messages still resonate with me.  Below are the guidelines I've either kept with me since then or added to the list because they matter to me.

The Object of Email
Everyone receives more email than he or she could possibly read carefully.  So, most emails are skimmed or even ignored.  The object of sending email is to get your message across while making it unnecessary for people to actually read it all.

Subject up Front
Always put your subject first.  Quite often, I get halfway thought composing an email before remembering this rule and as jarring as it sometimes seems to put it right out there - "I need twenty-five hundred dollars for a conference", it is good advice.  Put the subject up front and then supporting details next.  Nobody wants to read eight paragraphs before you get to the point.

Short and Direct
Get your point across in as few words as possible.

White Space and Bullets
Use white space and bullets to make your email look uncluttered.  Nobody likes to read a long, thick paragraph.  Use numbered lists for things that need to be ordered and use bullets for general lists.

Subject Line
Use a relevant subject line.   Make sure your subject accurately reflects what the email is about.  When forwarding, or responding on a different subject, change the subject, if necessary, to maintain accuracy.  This also helps everyone on the thread when searching for the email by topic.

Reply vs. Reply to All
Use Reply to All sparingly.  Consider if everyone on the thread needs to see your response.  Try to reply only to the sender, or to as few people as necessary, whenever possible.

Use bcc 
When addressing a large group, address the email to yourself and put everyone else in the bcc field.  Using bcc prevents the readers from having to scroll through a long list of recipients before getting to the meat of the message.  Outside of work, using bcc will protect the privacy of the recipients by hiding email addresses from other recipients.

Spelling and Punctuation
Use spell check and proofread.

Angry? Don't Send!  
Never send email when you are angry or upset.  Always save as draft and make the send decision later.  More often than not, the decision to send will change when you're calm.

Details
Are all details included?  Try to predict any further questions the reader will have and include them in the first email.  You can reduce additional email volume by being thorough.

Redirect Your Outlook to Gmail!

Why should you redirect your email from Outlook to Google?

• Get all your mail in one place
• Student emails auto-populate in Gmail
• Gmail is connected to all your Google for Education Apps - Drive, Calendar, Sites, Blogger
• Gmail works in all browsers
• Redirecting ensures that you will get ALL of your mail no matter which inbox is comes into
• Gmail inbox has a chat feature so you can communicate with other teachers without leaving the room

How to redirect mail from Outlook (@spsd.org ) to Google (@spsdme.org):

1. Log on to your Outlook mail at https://mail.spsd.org using your @spsd.org credentials.
2. Click on the Options menu just under your name in the upper right corner of the screen.
3. Select Create an Inbox Rule…
4. Click the New button.
5. Click the More Options link on the first pop up screen.
6. Select [Apply to All Messages] under  When the message arrives, and:
7. Under Do the following: Hover over the forward, redirect, or send option and then select Redirect the message to…
8. Type your Google address in the To: field at the bottom of the screen and press ENTER. (example: glatzsa@spsdme.org)
9. Click OK.
10. OPTIONAL: Type a name for the rule in the Name of rule: field.
11. Click Save.

END

Evernote vs. eBackpack for Student Portfolios

Student Portfolios - Evernote vs. eBackpack

	Evernote	eBackpack
Account Setup	Manual by email	District setup
Web and iPad	Yes & Mac/PC App	Yes
Sharing Portfolio	Weblink, email, share folder	Teacher only (act as…)
Viewing Portfolio	Folder Items or Presentation Mode	Folder Items
Collaboration	Can share folders collaboratively	No
Annotation	Web Version Only	iPad Version Only
Life of Account	Forever	Graduation or until district stops paying for app
Cost	Free	MLTI 7-12, Gr.6 $?
Ease of Use	Fair	Excellent
Max Space	Unlimited, but 60MB/Month upload limit	Unlimited
Input Methods	Camera Camera Roll Type directly Audio File - Mic Built in checklists Built in reminders Other Apps From Web (directly) Email	Camera Camera Roll Audio File - Mic Other Apps
Organization	Hierarchical: Tags Notes Notebooks Stacks	Folders in Folders
External Service Accounts	Not needed, everything jives	Drive, Dropbox
Spell Check	No	Yes
iOS Auto Correct	Yes	No
Notificaitons	Can set reminders	Teacher sets due dates
Privacy	Web based, private, user is the only viewer unless deliberately shared	Web based, but closed system. Student accounts can be viewed by teachers
Procedure to Input From Other App	Open In… Choose Evernote Continue working in same program.	Open In… Choose eBackpack eBackpack opens Choose location in eBackpack Save Ends in eBackpack Drive is a pull from within eBackpack
Compatability	Could not find an incompatible productivity app. Works with web browsers.	Compatible with all apps, sometimes in the “more” area.   Not compatable with web browsers.
Summary	Pros:  Extremely Versatile, works as a first choice with all other apps, including browsers.  Presentation mode, sharing and collaboration lend themselves well to student portfolios.  Easy to add a huge variety of media. Cons:  No spell check, students manage their accounts.	Pros: Closed system, privacy.  Ease of use.  Teacher can reset passwords.  No account creation needed. Built in spell check. iPad annotation feature.  Simple to use. Cons;  No sharing and presenting is basically rifling through a folder.

Where am I on my Mac?

When you search for a file on your computer and it shows up in Finder, do you struggle to figure out where it lives on your computer?  

With this quick fix, you can have Finder always display the full path of your file as shown below:



















This short document will walk you through a quick console command to make the path visible in Finder:

1.  Click Applications folder and open Utilities.
2.  Double click Terminal to open the terminal.
3.  At the prompt (assetID-computername: ~username$) type (or cut and paste) the following command:
   defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES
4.  Press the ENTER key.
5.  Go back to Finder so that it can be restarted.
6.  Click on the Apple in the upper left corner of the screen.
7.  Select Force Quit.
8.  Click on the Finder application in the list of applications that pops up.
9.  Click on the Relaunch button.

Open Finder and it will be displaying the path!

Customize Your Chrome Google Apps Launcher

Figure 1
Apps Launcher Menu

<--- When you use the little grid in the Chrome browser to switch between Gmail,  Drive or other Google Apps, is the Apps Launcher menu meaningful to you?  Are the resulting choices apps you don't need?  Do you have to go searching for the ones you do need?

Well, here is a quick way to customize your Apps Launcher with Google Apps and other links that you use frequently.

1. Click this link to locate and install the App Launcher Customizer Tool.
2. Re-open or reload your Chrome browser.
3. Click on the App Launcher grid again, scroll down to the bottom and click on "Configure". 
4. Now you can drag apps to and from the right pane to add or remove them from your App Launcher menu. 

Mail Merging for Google Drive with autoCrat

I love Google Drive, but there are a few things that have still been quicker and easier for me to in Microsoft Office or iWork.  One of those things is a mail merge, which I can do in just a minute or two in Excel/Word.

A mail merge is used to pull data from a spreadsheet into a document, such as mailing labels, form letters, permission slips, or any template document that needs a unique piece of information on each one.

I used a Google Script called "autoCrat".  Here is more information about the script.

How it works:

1. Create a Google Spreadsheet with a column heading for each piece of information needed for the letter or other document.
2. Create a Google Document and use anchors wherever external information will be pulled from a spreadsheet.  
• Example:  Dear <<firstname>> <<lastname>>
• Note that anything contained in the <<>> tells the doc to go find information somewhere else and...
• Text within the <<>> must exactly match the column heading in the spreadsheet.
3. In the spreadsheet, click Tools-->Script Gallery and search for autoCrat.  Click the Install button. Now you will see an additional option added to your Spreadsheet
   
4. Click the autoCrat pull-down menu and select Run Initial Configuration. 
5. Follow prompts that walk through the script setup or use THIS step-by-step document as a guide.

This is very slick!  Give it a try or contact me if you want me to walk you through it.

How to Back up Your iPad

There are a lot of different ways to back things up from your iPad.  The method you choose depends largely on how you want to access your backup.  Here are some tips and directions for saving all of your iPad data.

To back up every single thing on your iPad: 

including documents, photos, videos, 3rd party application data, settings, and layout, use the iCloud Storage & Backup utility.

This method is very thorough, however, the backup is saved as a single entity.  This backup method can be used to restore your entire iPad should you have to reset it or get a new one for any reason.
iCloud Storage Backup should always be done in case of unforeseen emergencies, but should not be relied upon as a method to access specific files, photos, or videos from another device.

To make a complete iPad backup:

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap iCloud settings
3. Tap Storage & Backup
4. Turn iCloud Backup slider to ON.

To retrieve the data later:

1. Go to Settings > General > Reset, then tap “Erase all content and settings.”
2. In the Setup Assistant, proceed to “Set up your device,” tap Restore from a Backup, then sign in to iCloud.
3. Proceed to “Choose backup,” then choose from a list of available backups in iCloud.

To back up specific items to view on another device:

Here are some methods of backing up specific files.  

Use iCloud settings.  This method is simple for some things (like your Keynote and Pages documents) and not so simple for others (like your Notes, Keychain, and Videos).  This method will not back up data from your non-Apple Apps, such as Explain Everything or Educreations.  Click here for complete instructions and information.

Save files to Google Drive.   You can use the GoogleDrive App or the desktop version in Safari.  You can choose to share from many apps and move the files to Drive that way or you can upload from within Google Drive.  Files can be accessed from any computer or device.

Export files to DropBox.  Save files to DropBox from many iPad apps or upload files from your camera roll from within the DropBox app or from DropBox.com.   Here is a link to create an account if you don't already have one.

Please contact me if you want help with backing up iPads for you or your students.  sarahglatzMMS.youcanbook.me