School Administrator Magazine Article

This article appeared in School Administrator magazine over a year ago. I did not know that the article also existed in cyberspace until today. The thrust is a discussion of using portfolios as a portion of the principal's evaluation.

Managing School the Easy Way

Experienced teachers will tell us that school success and intelligence do not always go hand-in-hand. Often, very bright young people don’t remember to do assignments, lose their work, and spend inordinate amounts of time frantically looking for things in a messy desk.
At the same time, other students breeze through school. They seem to make school look easy, but not because they are necessarily smarter than their peers. They have acquired some very easy, very teachable habits. Here are some ideas to make our students days in school a little easier:

• Write down the things you have to do as soon as they occur to you. The student who tries to keep everything in his or her head is headed for trouble. Even young people today have many activities on which they must focus their attention—homework, athletic practices, family activities, and chores are just some of the obligations our children have. The easy thing to do is let pencil and paper do the remembering. Get it on paper and you can get it off your mind! An assignment book or student planner is the perfect tool for this purpose. The big advantage of using such a book is that all commitments are in one place.

• Break big projects down into little parts. As adults, we remember fondly the English teacher who assigned the term paper (due 2 months hence), and then said, “I want you to turn in your topic this Friday, and outline the next Friday, a dozen note cards the next Friday...” That teacher knew that left to our own devices, we would put off the seemingly overwhelming task until the last minute and then throw something together. She made us break the big job into manageable parts. What are the big projects for our students? Perhaps making the Accelerated Reader “100 Club,” earning the badge in scouting, or making a sports team are a student’s goals. For each one, there is a very next step. When the little steps are defined and handled, the big projects fall into place.

• Empty the bookbag totally every night. For some students, the bookbag is a big black hole into which papers go and are never seen again. When the student finally cleans out the bookbag in May, one can only imagine what lurks at the bottom of the bag. That permission slip he never could find, the homework paper she was sure she did, and that half-eaten banana are among the treasures at the bottom of the bookbag.

• Learn to deal with papers. So much of the information exchanged between the home and the school happen through written communication. Report cards, Tuesday folders, notes from teachers, field trip permission forms, and newsletters are examples of information which comes via paper. Some students seem to have no problem getting papers home and back on time. Other students never seem to be able to get anything home. Papers get wadded up in pockets, stuck inside textbooks or notebooks, or placed inside desks. By the time the student gets home, where to find that paper is anybody’s guess (assuming she remembers she had a paper to delivery at all)! Having a simple plan puts an end to a great deal of unnecessary stress.

• Students need a place at school to put the papers for Mom or Dad, and put them there every time. Some classes may have a special folder which goes home each night. This week’s page in the planner is an ideal place to trap loose papers. When the student opens the planner at home, he is looking right at the papers, an instant reminder that they need to be handed off to Mom or Dad.

• Students need a spot at home where papers for Mom or Dad go. The last thing a parent needs when getting home from a busy day at work is to have a fistful of papers shoved at him. Nor does she need to go on a safari through the home looking for papers which may have been put who knows where. Conducting an excavation inside a bookbag is no fun either. Children don’t have it any easier. They don’t always know when parents are ready to focus on papers from school. Having one spot to put everything for Mom or Dad’s review at their convenience makes life easier for all concerned.

• Get everything ready the night before. Forgotten items, missed school busses, and frazzled nerves can so often be traced back to one simple problem—assuming Rome can be built between the time the alarm clock goes off and the school bus pulls up. Morning is a terrible time to do that last bit of homework, finish that poster, or get those papers signed. Without fail, that book we just knew was on the coffee table is nowhere to be found and it’s already time to pull out of the driveway. Get it all ready the night before and mornings become more peaceful.
  

A little organization can go a long way towards making school (and life) more stress-free and enjoyable!

What's not working?

Conveniences are all around us. From microwave ovens to electric pencil sharpeners, we have an abundance of tools that make our lives easier—provided they work. What a handy tool we have in that electric stapler—only it doesn’t work because it’s out of staples. How about that empty tape dispenser in your desk drawer?

This week, I challenge you to look at what’s not working in your world and do something about it. The electric stapler sits unused because it’s out of staples and you haven’t refilled it because you are out of (or can’t find) more. You have been meaning to order more but you keep forgetting. The next time you think about needing staples is—you guessed it—when you go to use that stapler and find it’s still empty.

As you come across these little annoyances, take a second to decide what needs to be done to fix it, and jot it in your planner. Don’t put getting staples on the list for today. Instead pick a day about a week out and start a list of little items to get. A week from now, you can handle that whole list at once.

Fixing the problem is the first step. The second step is deciding how to avoid the problem in the future. Think about this one—at your house, when do you decide you need to buy toothpaste? Is it when the tube runs out and you realize there are no more under the counter? Or, is it when you take the last one from under the counter? In the first case, you have a minor crisis—you need toothpaste NOW. In the second case, you just need to put toothpaste on the grocery list and go on about your business.

Ask yourself the same thing about supplies in your classroom. Do you order more when you are OUT or when your reserve is low? What about textbooks? If a new student enrolled tomorrow, would you have books for him? If not, why not go ahead and put in a request now, so that when you DO get another student—and you will—that you are prepared. You own 7 umbrellas, yet you never seem to have one in the car you when a downpour occurs. What could you do to fix that problem once and for all?

What else in your classroom doesn’t work? What about that regular pencil sharpener where the handle has been loose for 2 years? What would it take to fix that? You have two desks that are awfully wobbly. What would it take to fix them? Realize this is a thought process that seldom occurs to most people. Too many of us simply get so used to all of the things in our lives that don’t quite work that we soon stop thinking about them anymore.

Have you cleaned out your desk lately? If not, put it on your to-do list. Out go the pencils with no points, the dried-up ink pens, the empty packs of Sweet & Low, and a host of papers that never should have been there to start with. You will be amazed at what you find there that you had no idea you had.

Why do people resist thinking through what it takes to fix the little broken things? I think the answer lies in that thinking through what needs to be done creates a long to-do list for people who already have too much to do and try to keep up with all of it in their heads. For those of us who have a “capture tool,” life is easier. We take a second to jot down what needs to happen. We organize our list in a way that groups similar items together. Then, we handle a number of similar items all in one sitting.

Get all of those conveniences in your life working and watch some of the stress in your life go away.

Getting from “In” to “Empty”

Let’s return to last week’s analogy for a moment. You walk to the curb and take empty the mailbox. When you walk away from that mailbox, it is empty! Better yet, it’s not empty just one day; it’s empty at the end of EVERY day. Wouldn’t it be great if only your e-mail inbox operated like the mailbox by the curb?

Decisions, Decisions
The key to getting an empty inbox is to simply make decisions about each and every item there. Therefore, make a practice of only looking at your e-mail when you have the time and energy to make those decisions. You are going to need to go from top to bottom and make small decisions at each turn.

Delete It
Much of your e-mail requires no action on your part other than briefly scan it and hit the delete key. Candidates include advertisements in which you have no interest, jokes, threads from e-mail discussion groups, and FYI courtesy copies. I find it helpful to sort the e-mail by “conversation.” All mail related to a single subject appears together. If the subject is of no interest, I delete the entire thread at one time.

Do It
Some e-mails require only a quick response. I recommend giving that response immediately and then deleting the mail if it is of no further value. What if the response is going to take some time, and possibly some research? In that case, I send a quick response to let the person know I received the message and will be getting back with them. Using Outlook, I drag the e-mail to the Task icon, assign a due date, category, and change the subject line as needed. I then delete the e-mail.

Delegate It
Perhaps someone else really needs to be handling this message. I simply forward the message the appropriate person and delete the e-mail. If I should happen to need it later, I can always go to my “Sent Items” and view what had been forwarded.

Save It
What if the information may be of lasting value? I can save the e-mail by going to the “File” menu and choosing “Save As.” I am able to choose the appropriate place on my computer.

If the e-mail is something I need to save for documentation purposes, I go to the “Memos & Letters” folder I have created in “My Documents.” I name the file with the author’s last name, a hyphen, and a few words descriptive of the subject. I choose to save the message as a text file. After saving, I can then delete the e-mail.

Perhaps the e-mail is a lesson plan. I would then save it with other lesson plans already stored electronically.

“In” Becomes “Empty”
The point is that a decision is made about each piece of e-mail, and that decision is made the first time the message is read. The basic decision is in which category a message falls: Delete, Do, Delegate, or Save. After handling each item, “IN soon becomes “Empty.”

Handle your E-mail—ALL of it

Imagine for a moment you have just arrived home from work. You walk to the curb and take the mail from your mailbox and walk back in the house. You open the mail and read it. Then, you walk back to the curb and put all of the mail back in the mailbox. Sounds crazy doesn’t it!

The next day, when you walk to the mailbox, you find today’s mail sitting on top of yesterday’s mail. After a couple of more days, will you need to buy a bigger mailbox! Even worse, you will hate that walk to the curb.

This scenario sound crazy, yet it is exactly how all too many people approach their e-mail inbox. They read it, and because they don’t know exactly what to do with it, they leave it. It is not uncommon to see an inbox that contains every piece of e-mail the owner has received since the computer was installed!

Next week, we will look at how to dig out from other and establish some habits that will get your inbox empty every day.

E-mail yourself?

Often, the purpose of an e-mail message is to ask someone else to do something. The ball is not in the other person’s court, but we still have the obligation to follow-up and be sure the other person delivers.

A simple technique for follow-up is to send yourself a copy of the message. Every e-mail program has in addition to the “to” and “cc” lines a line called “bcc,” which stands for “blind courtesy copy.” The difference between the “cc” and “bcc” is significant. When you put an address in the “cc” line, all other recipients can see that this person received a copy. When you put an address in the “bcc” line, the person receives copy of the message, but no other recipient will know it.

When I delegate a task to someone else via e-mail, I put myself in the “bcc” line. The next time I check my e-mail, a copy of that e-mail arrives in my inbox and serves as a reminder to follow-up.

What do you do with that reminder? I use Outlook synced to my Palm as a means of organizing my life. I simply drag the e-mail over the task icon (which automatically creates a new task in Outlook with all of the appropriate information filled in. I assign a due date, assign a category of “Delegated” and save. I then delete the e-mail message. Now, a reminder to follow-up on the task appears with other “delegated” items on my task list.

For those who do not use all of the features of Outlook, leaving the e-mail in your inbox is an option. Since the message shows you as the sender, you will know that it was a delegated item. After a reasonable period of time has passed, you may simply forward the message to the person again or pick up the phone to follow-up that way. When the other person completes the assignment, you simply delete the e-mail.

E-Mail—Time Management Tool or Time Sink?

Is E-mail a great time management tool or a great time sink? In little more than a decade, it has gone from being a rare novelty to being commonplace. We all love it, because it’s so easy to send a message to one person or to hundreds of people. All with a single mouse click. We hate it because our e-mail explodes with advertisements, jokes, and a host of other low priority items. We stress about it because we also get good information and don’t know exactly what to do with it.

E-mail is the most efficient means of communication we have in the world of education.
Even if had phones in our classrooms, statistics from the business world show that only something like 20% of calls are completed the first time.

When we use e-mail, we send messages when it is convenient for us. They are read when it is convenient for the other person. It eliminates calls that end with “I’ll get that information and get back with you” and perpetual telephone tag.

Getting Newspaper Coverage
How many feel like your local paper is always there to cover the good things that happen in your school? When I ask this question on workshops, rarely does a hand raise. The truth is that papers are usually glad to print what you give them provided you get it to the right person and you make it easy for them. E-mail is the answer.

Go home, call the paper, and ask for the name and e-mail address of the person to whom you should send school-related material. When you have something, e-mail it. You aren’t going to be spending your planning period driving to the paper and searching for the right person to hand your stuff to. They aren’t going to have to turn around and retype your copy. You will find your story, along with the digital photo you include as an attachment, winds up in the paper.

Committee Work
If you are doing committee work where everyone has their part to prepare and then it’s merged into one document, send it by e-mail to one person who simply pastes it together. Pasting it and then going through to add nice formatting is a lot more fun than taking a stack of papers other people have typed on their computers and printed out that you are now going to sit and type back into your computer.

Old Habits are Hard to Break—Some scenarios to examine:

1. A teacher wants to reschedule a committee meeting, so she writes a note, and has a student take it from room to room. That might have been the most efficient way to do it—before e-mail. Now, we can e-mail that same message to as many people as needed in much less time and without having to interrupt other classes.
2. Central office sends a memo and wants you to share the information with everyone. Do you put it on a bulletin board and hope everyone stops and notices there is something new there? Do you Xerox a copy for everyone and stuff the boxes? Or, do you encourage the central office to send it via e-mail to a contact person, who then simply clicks “Forward,” clicks a “group” into which the faculty and staff has been placed, and then clicks “Send.”
3. A new student enrolls (or a student withdraws). Who needs to know that? In a typical elementary school, the answer would include the music teacher, PE teacher, librarian, counselor, or lunchroom manager. In your school, how do you let them all know? In all too many schools, these people are not notified at all. The solution is simple. First, identify who needs to know about entries and withdrawals. Secondly, create an e-mail group which includes each of those people. Part of the standard procedure for enrolling or withdrawing a student will now include sending an e-mail message to that group.
4. Students misbehave from time to time and, from time to time, a teacher made need to send a discipline referral to the school office. Before computers, all of the teachers had discipline referral cards. The teacher wrote all of the details about what the student did. The administrator simply made on note on the form as to the consequence being assigned and was finished. Now, the discipline records are on computer. Someone must take the teacher’s written narrative and key it into the computer. If the number of referrals to the office is very large at all, this process can become a time sink. A possible alternative is to have teachers submit discipline referrals via e-mail. The administrator can then electronically copy and paste the teacher’s comments into the student administrative software.
   
   Over the next several weeks, I will share some other e-mail practices which work for me and help keep e-mail a timesaver and not a time sink.

Dissertation Advice

This post is basically a response that I posted on the David Allen discussion board. A reader asked for advice on preparing a dissertation. Following is what I found to be extremely beneficial and something I would recommend to anyone:

I made no notes on 3X5 cards nor did I ever have various sources scattered all over the floor. On my computer, I had a single file that I had named something like "Lit Review." It really amounted to electronic 3X5 cards.

I would read a particular source (article or book) from beginning to end and take notes on screen. I would putt a couple of line breaks between each entry I used. At the end of each entry, I referenced the page number. If I had quoted anything, I used quotations right then and there so that later on there would be no doubt about what had been taken word-for-word and what I had paraphrased. When I finished with that source, I put the bibliographical entry for that article or book. Then, I would begin reading and taking notes from the next source.

When I felt like I had read everything of value and was "done" researching, I started at the end of my notes and "copied" the last bibliographical entry. I then pasted that bibliographical entry at the end of every single citation from that particular source. I then continued that process throughout the entire set of notes. When I finished, every bit of information was tagged with a page number and complete bibliographical entry.

As I put together the review of literature, categories began to emerge. My next step was to begin cutting and pasting all of these bits of information so that like info was together. (This would be just like taking a set of 3X5 note cards and sorting them in the order you want to use them in your paper.)

When I finished with this process, I basically had my review of literature organized. From there, it was a matter and creating the wording that would link these ideas and help the whole thing flow. The process also entailed cutting the bibliographical entries and pasting them in the bibliography. That insured that I had not left anything out of the bibliography. It also ensured that I had not included anything in the bibliography that had not actually been used in the paper.

When people ask me how long it took me to write the dissertation, I always say 6 months, 2 years, or 4 year, depending on how you look at it. I had the original idea when I was working on a paper for an earlier degree (which is what I mean by the 4 year part).

When I started the doctoral program, I knew I was going to be writing a paper for every class, so I found some way to work my eventual dissertation topic into the requirements for every one of those papers, so that I was constantly feeding the dissertation. From the time I entered the program to the time I defending the dissertation was 2 years and 2 months. I would recommend to ANYBODY starting a doctorate to spend considerable time getting at least a general idea of what they want to write the dissertation on BEFORE you start classes. Otherwise, you find yourself up to your ears getting through one class after another and no time to step back, look at the whole program, all make all the parts work together.

I sat down with my chair on morning to hammer out a title, a hypothesis, how I would conduct the study, etc. One hour later, our meeting was done. Six months later, I defended the dissertation. The subject? Time management practices of Alabama principals.

PDA Article

A little over a year ago, I submitted a piece to the McGraw-Hill/Glencoe "E-Zine." If you are thinking about joining the ranks of those who use a PDA, I think you will enjoy the article. It can be found here.

An overheard conversation

One experience which we probably all share is being in a public place and having our attention drawn to a conversation too loud to ignore. This happened to me during a recent holiday as I stopped off between appointments to grab a bite of breakfast.

At the table next to me sat two mothers engaged in what was essentially a contest to see which could bad-mouth her child’s teacher the worst. The emotion and volume of their conversation made it hard for me or anyone else at the surrounding tables to tune them out. One particular point, however, got my attention.

“My son got a zero on an assignment,” one mother stated, “and I didn’t find out about it until 5 days later in the weekly folder.” She continued, “If my child makes a zero, I expect to know about it that day!” Her point was clear. Keeping her informed (and on an up-to-the-minute basis) was the responsibility, and total responsibility, of her son’s teacher.

It took every bit of self-control I could muster to keep from turning to her and saying:

“Excuse me, but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. I agree with you 100% that if your child makes a zero, you should find out about it that day. But I disagree with you on who should be the bearer of the news. That responsibility belongs to your child. It’s called sitting down around the dinner table and making a discussion of how the school day went part of the conversation. It’s called giving an 8-year old some 8-year-old responsibilities so that when he’s 30 he can hopefully take on some 30-year-old responsibilities. It’s called having some expectations in your household, and being honest with Mom ought to be one of them. Then when the weekly folder does come, if there are surprises in it (like that zero that he somehow forgot to mention), you hold Junior accountable.

“Your child’s teacher is not going to be with him 24-7 to give you an instant update on who he is with and what he is doing in the community. If the only information you are getting on what Junior is doing is from his teacher, you are going to be looking at far worse problems in the next several years than a zero on an assignment.”

As I continued with my meal, a battle was going on inside my head. Part of me was urging me to speak up. After all, there is a young man who needs to accept responsibility for reporting to Mom the bad news, and a teacher who deserves better than being the subject of this conversation in a public place. The other part of me was saying to just to be polite and eat. After all, it’s none of my business—or is it?

As we think back to our own childhood’s, we probably remember fondly the various responsibilities our parents gave to us and for which they held us accountable. Responsibility was a gift they gave to us, and we are better people for it. In this day of “instant everything,” it is so easy to leave the child out of the loop and remove responsibility altogether.

As the situation played itself out, I simply finished my breakfast and paid the check. As I walked out the door, I could not help having felt that by remaining quiet, I had become part of the problem.

Monthly Tickler File in My Documents

We have talked about the value of having a “Repeating Task List” to prevent you from having to rethink the details of those activities that come around every month or every year. I found that many entries on my list had to do with updating documents. One entry would remind me to update and print the “Welcome to School” letter. Another would remind me to update the student handbook. Many of the documents would require no more than simply being pulled up on the computer, printed, and Xeroxed. The list gave me the freedom not to hope I remembered what routine information needed to be updated and sent to other people.

I took this idea one step further. Wouldn’t it be great if all of those routine documents were organized in one place? Here is how you can accomplish exactly that:

1. In My Documents, create a new folder and name it “Monthly Ticklers.” (Right-click and from the menu, choose “New” and then “Folder.”)

2. Double-click on Monthly Ticklers. Inside that folder, create 12 new folders. Name each one with a different month of the year.

3. Identify the documents you will need to update or use at a particular time of the year and drag them to the appropriate monthly folders.

4. On your Repeating Task List, make an entry that says, “Check Monthly Tickler on Computer.” You will need to make this entry 12 times, one for each month.

From now on, as you work through your Repeating Task List, each month you are going to see a reminder that will send you to the Monthly Tickler folder on your computer. I would suggest blocking out some time when you can work through all of the documents in that folder at one sitting. Some months may have few, if any, documents in them.

In all too many schools, intelligent people sit around racking their brains trying to remember what routine documents need to be handled. All too often the reminder comes when others start to ask, “Where is the XYZ form that we always get this time of year?” In the worst cases, those documents are created from scratch because people either can’t remember where (or even if) they have saved the document last time it was used.

Our business is filled with opportunities that require creativity and spontaneity. Our business is also filled with repetitive tasks. We can spend all our time, energy, and creativity on overdue repetitive tasks nipping at our heels. Our alternative is to set up simple systems that handle the routines and remind us our obligations at the appropriate times.

Handling Paper Correspondence

A letter arrives from Joe Smith. In it, he talks about a donation he is making to your playground project. Exactly what do you do with the letter?

First all of, realize that this letter is probably two kinds of items rolled into one. You may need to act on this letter in some way, such as calling him or writing back to him. His letter is an action item and needs to be handled as such. Throw it in your in-box until you either take the necessary action or make a note in your planner as to what action you need to take.

Now the piece of paper becomes a reference item. Just where do you file it? As a general rule, I file correspondence by the name of the person or organization who authored it. So, do I now label a folder “Smith, Joe” and file the lone piece of paper in it? If that were the case, I would soon have many folders each with only one or two pieces of paper.

The solution I have found is a single set of 26 folders labeled A through Z. The letter from Joe Smith is going to go in the back of the “S” folder. Should I need to put my hands on it again, I don’t need to wonder if I filed the letter in “P” for “playground” or “D” for “donations.” I simply ask who authored the letter, and I have my answer. Since Smith was the author, it will be in the “S” folder.

Notice that I said I would file the Smith letter in the back of the “S” folder. A study by Stanford University revealed that 87% of filed papers are never looked at again! The chances are that I will never have to put my hands on the Smith letter again. For this reason, I am interested in a system that makes filing as fast and fun as possible even if it makes retrieval just a little longer.

Filing the Smith letter in the back of the “S” folder is very quick, much quicker than filing it between “Si” and “Sn.” In addition, my chances of misfiling are slim when I file to the back of the folder. As we go through the year, the “S” file is chronological. What I receive near the beginning of the school year is towards the front.

What I receive towards the end of the year is near the back. To retrieve the Smith letter, I think, “About what point in the year did I receive the letter?” I then look towards the front, middle, or end of the folder depending on whether I received the letter towards the beginning, middle, or end of the year.

How important is it to save a particular letter? The answer is often unclear when you receive it. Six months down the road, you have a much better idea of whether a letter needs to be retained. For this reason, I err on the side of saving too much rather than not enough.

During the summer, I purge the 26 A-Z folders. I open the “A” folder and look at each piece of paper for about 2 seconds. The papers that look to be of lasting value are placed face down in one stack. Everything else goes in another stack. When we have finished with the “Z” folder, I am looking at a stack of papers maybe an inch in height that need to be saved. I label a folder “Correspondence 2004-2005” (or whatever the school year may be) and file that slim stack of papers. They will be retained permanently. What about the other stack, which measures about 3 feet tall? That is where a couple of big garbage bags come in handy. At the end of the process, I have 26 empty folders ready to start the process over again.

To review, your system has to be fast, it has to be fun, and it has to be easy enough you will actually use it.

Saving correspondence so you can actually find it again

We write letters, memos, and e-mails to others. Others write the same to us. Putting our hands on those pieces of correspondence later can be tough.

This week, we will look at correspondence you write. With a good filing system on your computer, there is little need for you to make a hard copy for yourself of correspondence you send to someone else. You will find exceptions where you need a hard copy when it is part of a file you are required to submit to someone else, but as a general rule, keep your copy in digital form. I say this for several reasons:

1. When you print a hard copy for yourself, you have yet another piece of paper to handle.

2. Files automatically sort themselves alphabetically on your computer.

3. Should you need to see files sorted by date created or modified, you can do so with the click of a mouse.

4. Retrieval is quicker. A click of the mouse is quicker than thumbing through the file drawer.

5. Should you forget exactly where you filed something, you can use the “find” command. Should you forget where you filed something in your metal filing cabinet is somewhat more cumbersome.

The first secret of being able to find correspondence you have written quickly is a combination of having a consistent method of naming documents and having a consistent way to file them. When I write a letter to someone, I name the file with the last name of the person, a hyphen, and several words descriptive of the subject. For example, the letter to Joe Smith regarding a donation he made to the playground fund is going to be titled “Smith—Playground Donation.” When I want to see that file, I don’t have to wonder whether I named it “Donation for Playground,” “Playground Donation,” “Letter to Joe Smith,” etc. The question I ask myself is, “To whom did I write the letter?” Answering that question tells me how I named the file.

The second secret to being able to find my correspondence is being consistent about where I file it. Inside My Documents is a folder entitled “Memos & Letters.” If I write correspondence, it’s going to go there. One thing to notice is that the letter I wrote to Joe Smith is automatically going to appear together with all of the other “Smith” letters.

What about correspondence others send to you? Next week, we will look at how to handle this task with paper correspondence. In a future week, we will look at correspondence that comes to you via e-mail.

To allow comments or not to allow comments…That’s the question

With apologies to Shakespeare, the decision about comment is one you will need to make as you establish your blog. In this pair of posts, we will examine the upside and downside of comments and then show you the mechanics of how to control comments in your blog.

Here are my thoughts on the upside and the downside of comments:
Upside:
1. Readers can give you feedback as to what they think about your post.
2. By adding their own ideas, the depth of meaning in your posts is enhanced.
3. Spirited debate can result.
4. Return visits may be encouraged because of the interest of the comments.

Downside:
1. One person with strong opinions may become a “thorn in your side.” You may take on the cyberspace version of a “heckler.”
2. If you feel the need to respond to those who leave comments, you are accepting a time commitment you could later regret.
3. You run the risk that someone may leave vulgar comments.
4. You run the risk that spammers can leave comments.

Controlling comments

When you log in to your blog, you will see a “Settings” tab. After clicking on it, you will see a “Comments” link. This link gives you access to the controls you can exert over comments.

Comments—Show or hide. If you readers to be able to leave to comments, choose “Show.” If not, click “Hide.”

Who can comment?—I would recommend that you select “Anyone.” You have other controls that will prohibit inappropriate comments. To limit comments only to those have their own Blogger blog would be a severe limitation on readers.

Enable comment moderation—I would recommend selecting “Yes” on this feature. A box will appear for you to put your e-mail address. When a reader submits a comment, that comment will be e-mailed to you for approval. If the comment is vulgar or consists of spam, you simply do not approve it. The disadvantage would be if you were going to be away from your computer for several days and comments would sit in your e-mail for some time waiting on approval.

Show word verification for comments—This tool is designed to keep spammers from posting to your blog. Readers will see a group of letters. In order to post, they would have to type the series of letters accurately. Word verification ensures that a real person is composing the comment. If you are using the “Comment Moderation” as discussed above, you would not need “Word Verification.”

Keeping Little Eyes Away from Inappropriate Material

People can take just about any good thing and find a bad way to use it—the telephone, the automobile, prescription medicines. The list could go on and on, and the Internet is a candidate for that list. This post and the next address the potential for someone reaching inappropriate material through a blog.

Sure, I realize that anyone sitting unsupervised at a computer and looking for inappropriate material will find it quickly without ever visiting my blog. I do, however, want to remove the possibility that by visiting my blog and clicking on link, a youngster could be seeing something he or she has no business seeing.

There are two points which have concerned me:

1. By far my biggest concern is the link at the top of Blogger blogs that says “Next Blog.” At first glance, it looks like a good feature. You can visit blog after blog you never knew existed, and you can find some real treasures. You can also find some real trash. You could be one click away from a blog featuring pornography, profanity, or hate speech.

2. A second concern is the graphic that says “I Power Blogger.” Clicking on this icon takes the reader to the Blogger site. While there, a person can create a blog or visit any number of random blogs. Again, the potential exists for the reader to click on a blog and reach inappropriate material.

You will notice neither of these objectionable items on this blog, the blog I use to communicate with parents (GrahamSchool.blogspot.com) or the blog I use to communicate with staff (GrahamStaff.blogspot.com). Two simple measures prevent someone reading your blog and being a couple of mouse clicks away from trouble. The next post gives step-by-step instructions on what I did to address these two concerns.

Removing the Navigation Bar and Blogger Icon

First, make a copy of the html code and save it:

1. Go to the Blogger homepage, log in, and click on your blog.
2. Click on the tab that says “Template.”
3. You are going to copy all of the html code and paste it in a Word document. To do this, click in the large box where the html code appears. Hold down the Ctrl code and hit the letter “A”. This will select all of the html code. Copy the text. Open a new Word document and paste. Save the document and minimize Word on the screen

Why do this? First of all, if you somehow mess up and want to start all over, you could go to this document and copy/paste it over the html code on your blog. Secondly, you can search for a piece of code easily in Word using the “find” command. You can get a good idea of how far down the page that piece of code, see what lines of code are close to it, etc.

Removing the Navigation Bar

1. Find the line of code that consists of the word "body" surrounded by the < > in the Word document you saved. Use the find command to search for. Be sure to surround the word “body” with the <> signs. See about how far down it falls in the code? See what other lines of code are near it.
2. Now, minimize Word again, so that you can see your blog again.
3. If your entire set of code of highlighted, click somewhere in the box to un-highlight it. (You would hate to hit one letter and delete every bit of the code.)
4. Scroll down until you find in your html code.
5. Just above the line that says , "body," you are going to type the word "noembed" Leave off the quotation marks. You will, however, enclose it with < > Just below that "body" line you are going to type "/noembed" Again, leave off the quotation marks but enclose it with < >
   
6. Would you like to see the results? Click the “Preview” button at the bottom of the page. The navigation bar should be gone.
7. Close the window so that you are again looking at your html code.
8. Click “Save Template Changes.”

Removing the Blogger icon

1. Basically, what you are going to do is highlight a delete one line of code. Just as before, pull up the Word document you created and use the “Find” command to locate "www.blogger.com" It appears one time. You will also see in that line of code the words "Powered by Blogger" and "bloggerbutton." You will highlight and delete the entire line.
2. Click “Preview” to see your results. Did it work?
3. Click “Save Template Changes.”
4. You will probably now see a message that says, “You must now republish your blog to see changes.” Click on the “Republish” button.

That’s it! I doubt the folks at Blogger would be happy about my doing this and even less happy about telling you about it. I am more concerned about being an accomplice to youngsters seeing stuff they shouldn’t than I am keeping folks happy.

Article in Principal Magazine

I invite you to read my article on blogging in the Nov/Dec 2005 issue of Principal magazine. The article is designed to introduce principals to the concept of blogging and show them how they can use a blog as a communications tool.

Routine Maintenance

Technology is great—when it works. A few simple maintenance tricks can help you avoid problems that would bring your system to a halt. On a weekly basis, you should run each of the following programs:

ScanDisk (not present on Windows 2000 and XP)—Checks for and repairs errors on your hard drive before they become serious.

Disk Cleanup—Identifies unnecessary files that are taking up space on your hard drive and eliminates them.

Disk Defragmenter—Over time, your files become fragmented. Parts of a single file may be spread over a variety of sectors on your hard drive. Disk Defragmenter rearranges the files on the hard drive so that all parts of a file are together.

Updating Virus Definitions—When you buy a virus program, the program protects you from the viruses that were known when that program was produced. It will not protect you against all of the new viruses which are released daily. As new viruses are written, the manufacturer of your virus software will release patches via their website. The process of getting those patches is known as updating your virus definitions.

To perform any of these maintenance routines, you will go to “Start” and choose “Accessories” from the “Program” menu. You will look for “System Tools.” There you will see each of the options we have discussed.

On Windows 2000 and XP, ScanDisk has been replaced with “CheckDisk.” CheckDisk is not even on the menu. To run it, go to Start>Run, and type chkdsk followed by pressing “enter.”

The real beauty lies in the fact that you can set your computer to run these routines automatically. One of the items on that same menu is called “Scheduled Tasks.” There, you can tell the computer when to run each of the maintenance routines. Generally, you would want to run them at night when nobody would be using the computer. (Again, chkdsk is something you will simply have to do on your own.)

My suggestion is to pick one evening of the week and have all of the routines run then. All you have to do is remember to leave the computer on overnight that particular night each week.

The time you spend setting up these routines will be saved many times over by the problems you will be preventing from happening with your computer.

Preventing Disaster

Being able to recover from disaster is good, but preventing disaster is better.

There are several tasks that, if done regularly, will prevent problems with crashes, performance, and viruses. This week we are going to talk about one of them—running Windows Update.

Windows is full of security problems. You may have even read in newspaper articles about security flaws that would allow another person to take over your computer. “Why doesn’t Microsoft do something to fix them?” you might ask. The good news is that they do.

When Microsoft finds a flaw in Windows, they write a patch for it. Each month, they are posted to Microsoft’s website. Getting the patches is very easy to do:

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. On the “Tools” menu, go to “Windows Update.”
3. You will be taken to Microsoft’s website
4. Microsoft will scan your computer to see what updates you need. (When you are asked questions, go ahead and give it permission to do what it needs to do.)
5. You will see a message telling you if there are any “critical updates” that you need. “Critical updates” are the only ones that need to concern you.
6. Follow the instructions to download and install the updates.

The first time you update Windows, do not be surprised if you are told you need several dozen updates. You will find a large group of updates will be downloaded and installed, and you will then be prompted to restart your computer and run Windows Update again to continue the process. You are looking at as much as an hour even with a T-1 line, so have at hand some other tasks to keep you busy. Do not despair, however. After the first time, updating Windows takes only a couple of minutes a month. You will find many months you are told that you do not need any updates at all.

How important is updating Windows? In a word—very. In August 2003, a worm called “Blaster” was infecting computers all over the world. One source estimated the cost in lost productivity, lost revenue, and lost services to restore infected computer was in the neighborhood of $500 million worldwide. All of that stress and heartache was totally unnecessary. In July, a full month before this worm infected computers, Microsoft had already released a patch. Everybody who ran Windows Update in July avoided the worm in August.

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace;
making the complicated simple,
awesomely simple, that’s creativity.”
—Charles Mingus