DoE e-mail? Avoid using it…
March 17, 2009 pm31 2:38 pm
Don’t use your DoE email unless you absolutely are required to. It is not private. Not private? That’s right, the DoE has the right to take a look at all you send and receive. If you are almost every normal person, there are some business e-mails that include some personal chit chat. It is very very easy to inadvertantly cross lines. So, no DoE e-mail, unless absolutely necessary. Please.
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That’s true for our school email as well, and many people’s work email. People should pretty much assume that their work email can be read by higher-ups and IT personnel, and can even become public, and avoid writing anything they don’t want the world to see.
Excellent advise, especially for the younger teachers in the small schools.
Good point JD.
But I think you have to be careful in giving this advice without spelling out what those “necessary situations might be.
Any communication between kids and teachers should be done through DOE email. This basically avoids the impression of any inappropriate contact. And certainly if you know the emails could be monitored, you are more likely to think clearly about what you might want to write.
Communication with parents should probably also be done through DOE email. This creates an easily accessible record of contact.
Using your DOE also email minimizes problems associated with having your account compromised. This isn’t to say your DOE account can’t be hacked. But if it is, it becomes DOE’s problem to fix it.
I personally hate when people at my school get my email address when I have not personally given it to them. Just because I work with people doesn’t mean I want anyone and everyone to know my personal email, especially if it is not some “throw away” yahoo or gmail account. For this reason, in communications with colleagues or in siuations where I might be the 50th person CCed in an email, I use my work email.
And even if you open your personal email account at school, a copy of anything you look at ends up being stored on a district server…..
I don’t think anyone should be opening personal email at work. But that’s just me. Friends sometimes send questionable things through email. And you never know if your friend’s harmless sense of humor might be misconstrued by the district as something else.