25 Gmail Tips for Teachers
If answering email takes up way more time in your day than you would like it to, take a look at my playlist of 25 Gmail tips for teachers and students. The playlist includes everything from how to sort your Gmail messages to filtering and blocking senders to email etiquette tips we all need to be reminded of from time to […]
A Quick Tip for Sorting Gmail
Here’s a little tip that I shared with a friend last weekend and I figured a few of you might appreciate it as well. When an email that you are expecting to appear in your primary tab in Gmail appears in another tab, you can simply drag it over to your primary tab. When you […]
Back to Basics With Email and RSS
Over the last few weeks I’ve fielded a lot of emails from readers who are wondering if they should stay on Twitter. Most of those emails have included requests for where to go next to keep up with ed tech. My answers have basically been, “I can’t tell you if you should quit Twitter” and […]
Watch Out for This Email Scam Pretending to Be From YouTube Support
If you have a YouTube channel, there is a new (new to me anyway) email scam that you need to be aware of. This scam landed in my inbox earlier today. Fortunately, the scam is so poorly executed that it is rather easy to spot. The scam is that someone finds the email address you […]
Conclusion to the Arthur Davidson Email Scam – Lessons in Context Clues and Motorcycles
Back in March I got an email from someone claiming to be a Boston-based intellectual property attorney working for the law firm of Arthur Davidson. The email was poorly formatted and had some other errors that made me think the email might not be from a legitimate attorney’s office. The email also happened to arrive on […]
An Update to Unraveling an Email Scam
About a month ago I published a video and blog post in which I explained the process that I used to unravel an email scam in which someone claimed to be an intellectual property attorney pursuing a case against me. That blog post turned out to be one the most popular things that I’ve published […]
Watch Me Unravel an Email Scam
As you know, I am a huge advocate for teaching students and teachers to respect copyright. To that end I always advocate for using your own media or media that is in the public domain whenever possible. So when an email with the subject line “DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice” landed in my inbox this morning, […]
Best of 2021 – Email Addresses for Cats and Dogs
As I do every year, I’m taking this week as a break from publishing new blog posts and will be republishing some of the most popular posts of the year. Here’s one from March. People often get a kick out of learning that my dogs have their own email addresses. You can send them email […]
Three Time-saving Email Tips for Teachers
Like most people I have a love-hate relationship with my email inbox. Over the years I’ve tried all kinds of tricks and tools to try to handle my inbox more efficiently. What I’ve found is that those tricks and tools only work if I also use a time-blocking strategy to decide to clear my inbox […]
Why My Dogs Have Email Addresses and Your Dog or Cat Should Too
People often get a kick out of learning that my dogs have their own email addresses. You can send them email at Mason or Fionn (at) freetech4teachers.com and they’ll get back to you as soon as they learn to type. My dogs have email addresses because I conduct a lot of workshops throughout the year […]
Watch Out for This Sneaky Email Scam – And a Super-techy Lesson on Email
On Monday I wrote about an email scam that tries to trick people into thinking they have violated a photographer’s copyright and need to add a link to their websites to remedy the problem. Yesterday, I had another sneaky scam attempt land in my inbox. The scam attempt that landed in my inbox yesterday can […]
A Few Short Lessons and Reminders About Email
Earlier this week I Tweeted a plea to try to remember to use basic niceties when sending emails seeking help from me or anyone else who is providing remote tech support right now. This morning I got a request from a friend on Instagram to re-post some of the videos and tips about email etiquette […]
Use Read Receipts to Make Sure Students Know They Have Google Classroom Assignments
Last week I published a post in which I explained that you can use read receipts in your G Suite for Education email to make sure that students have at least seen your messages even if they don’t reply to your messages. I do that when I email students to remind them that they have […]
Save and Use Multiple Signatures in Gmail
Google has introduced a new Gmail feature that could be helpful to anyone who has ever struggled with choosing what to put in his or her email signature. Gmail will now let you create multiple signatures, save them, and pick the one you want to use on each of the messages you send. For example, […]
A Tip for Your Colleagues Who Unnecesarily Use “Reply All”
In a presentation that I occasionally give about the evolution of educational technology I have a slide that lists classic online discussion tools. On that slide I have a bullet point that reads, Group Email (which everyone hates). That slide always gets a chuckle from the audience because everyone has a colleague that uses “reply […]
Email 101 – And Some Time-saving Tips
We’re all busy. And the new school year can feel exceptionally busy. That’s not an excuse to ignore basic email etiquette like addressing a person by name when sending him or her a message for the first time or for the first time in a while. Here are a few videos that offer good advice […]
Common Craft Explains How to Craft Clear Email Communication
Love it or hate it, email is a part of our daily work lives. And for our students of middle school age or older it’s a part of their daily lives too. If you’re like me, the emails that you reply to the fastest are the shortest emails that get right to the point. Brevity […]
A Great Email Etiquette Lesson from a Student
This morning, like most mornings, I opened my email to see a bunch of requests for help with various educational technology tools. Half of them I am very happy to answer. Those are the ones in which the sender addresses me by name and makes a polite request. Then there are the ones like this […]
A Couple of Reminders About Email Etiquette
Two things prompted this post. First, this week I have received a dozen or more emails from teachers who didn’t bother to write anything like, “Hi Richard” or any other greeting. Instead they just jumped right into a request. I like to help people, but I like to help polite people more. Second, as school […]
Three Tools That Can Help You Save Time on Routine Tasks
Time is the one thing that we want more of. We can’t create more time for ourselves but we can be more efficient on some routine tasks so that we have more time for the fun things we want to do. Here are three tools that you might want to try to use to save […]
Where You Can Follow My Work
If you’re reading this, the numbers say that you found my blog through one of the following methods: Facebook referral – Here’s the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page. Email referral – Join the daily email list. Organic search Twitter referral – Follow me on Twitter. Pinterest referral – Follow my primary board. There are […]
How to Automatically Forward Your G Suite Email to a Personal Gmail Address
This is the time of year that I always get a bunch of questions from folks who leaving a school and want to take some emails with them from their old accounts. That can be done by just forwarding those messages from your old account to your personal account. But if you’re not leaving your […]
