Gossip Image: sxc.hu

There may be nothing wrong with the e-mail, but has more private details than you feel the world should know.  It also has the potential of offending any people you may have mentioned.

Some people have no qualms about airing their clean and dirty laundry, their innermost feelings, family secrets, their financial challenges on social sites where the whole world has access.  Even if you’ve only admitted specific people as your friends, posting to them, replying to them expands the circle of people who have access to your information.  Also, those friends may decide to make it more public without your permission.

So…teach your children that if they want privacy, they need to be very careful about what they post and to whom they post.  Young people, as well as older, don’t seem to realize the ramifications of the Internet and how it can spread information you don’t want made public or in the way you may have expressed it to a close friend or relative.

The same goes for text messaging.  You may find that someone is posting your private texts to them on social media.  They simply want to share, but perhaps it isn’t something you want shared with everyone.  They really should ask your permission because, by copyright law, you own what you wrote and pictures you took.  However, most people are ignorant of this.

The lesson seems to be….THINK before you write to ANYONE or post anything.  What you write and pictures you take may reach the world without you wanting them to.

Post from: Blisstree

Privacy No Longer Private on the Internet

text messaging image: sxc.hu

Although teachers keep their eyes alert for cell phones (not allowed during school hours in most schools), they often find it difficult to keep up with all the latest texting technology.

In surveys of kids who use cell phones to cheat, some know it’s wrong, but others appear to consider it okay. 

• They may take pictures of notes and text book pages to consult during tests.
• They sometimes text answers back and forth to friends.
• They may take a quick picture of the test and send it to friends who haven’t taken it yet, or to friends who can text them the answers.
• At some national tests, students are asked to leave their cell phones at the door, after it was learned they were sending copies of the tests, via camera phones, to friends in different time zones. 

What do your youngsters think about using cell phones to acquire answers for tests?  To exchange tests and answers with their friends?  To scan notes they shouldn’t be using? 

Have you ever asked them?

Post from: Blisstree

Kids Cheating on Tests by Text Messaging

Many young people use numbers and letters (4 instead of for, u for you) to speed up the process so they often don’t remember the correct spelling.

Adults also have developed this trend, and I find myself (as a teacher, author and English minor) doing the same.  However, most adults have learned to correctly spell.  Many youngsters have not, so they begin to substitute the text spelling into their work at school.

Image: sxc.hu

Do you feel it’s important that texting may be influencing a generation of non-spellers or “creative” spellers?  Will we, who have been taught grammar and spelling, need to learn that type of spelling to communicate with them and to stay in today’s loop?

What will spelling look like in years to come?

Post from: Blisstree

Will Texting Affect Children’s Spelling?

Blackberry image: sxc.hu

 His granddaughter and her brother, who was driving, had stopped in a line of traffic at a red light.

They were rear ended and the granddaughter was thrown against the windshield.  (She was faulted for not wearing her seat belt.)  The hit from behind was forceful enough that it threw the grandchildren’s car into the one stopped ahead of them.  People from all three cars were taken to the hospital.  Fortunately none were injured enough to require  more than outpatient care.

Do you and/or your youngsters use cell phones and text while driving?  Do you feel you’re safe when you’re doing this? Do you think it’s okay to have your attention diverted by your texting  while driving?  Or driving one-handed while using a cell phone?

Would you want your children or grandchildren  involved in an accident as our friend’s grandchildren were…because a driver was text messaging?

Post from: Blisstree

Do You Text & Drive?

Image: sxc.hu

Nowadays, there are so many ways to communicate and to let them know the ties with home aren’t broken:

• Phone and cell phone
• Text messaging
• E-mail
• Facebook or similar
• Skype of similar
• Postal mail
• “Care” packages

I think our granddaughter has received all of these types of communications from her parents, brother, grandparents, friends and aunt.  We know her ups and downs and she knows we’re all here and care.

Nowadays the means of communication are so many versus my college days when we wrote letters to parents and they to us.  We used the phone only for emergencies because long distance calls weren’t in the family budget.

When our daughter attended college, we used the phone a little more.  But the postal mail was the main means of messages back and forth.

How do you keep in touch with your college students?

Post from: Blisstree

Communicating with Your College Student

If you are in a trusting relationship, then there is no need for excessive use of the phone to keep in contact.  Unanswered phonecalls and delayed responses to text messages can cause unnecessary stress, doubt, and worry.  It’s possible that your significant other actually loves talking to you and hearing from you, but has a life outside of being attached to the phone. 

Here are some questions to ask yourself about your relationship involving your significant other and the phone to find out if you need to re-address the amount of time that you spend communicating (or miscommunicating) by phone:

• Do you call when you have nothing to say?
• Do you argue more over the phone than in person?
• Do you feel anxious if he doesn’t answer the phone?
• If he doesn’t answer, do you call again right away?
• Do you go over the monthly limit of minutes or texts on your cell phone bill regularly?
• Do you feel angry or sad if he misses a call from you?
• Do you try to keep him on the phone even when he says he is busy?

I have to admit that in past relationships I have been guilty of all of these problems, and now I am also able to recognize how often they occur in other couples.  Don’t feel terribly if you answered “yes” to a lot of the above questions…it’s really quite common!

Take time to talk to your significant other in person about the situations that have come up the questions listed above and express how you have been feeling.  It will help enormously to let him know how his actions make you feel, but also help you to realize that you need to adjust issues of frequency and expectations surrounding phone communications.  A simple solution might be to just call and text each other less!

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Do We Talk Too Much On The Phone?

Image: sxc.hu

 I still try to send postcards with hand written notes as bits of inspiration. As the cost of postage gets higher, my communications more frequently result in postcards, but I still like to send and receive these. I recall the pleasure, too, when I found letters and cards my grandmother had saved, some dating back nearly 150 years ago.

These letters were the only means of communication between families in those days before telephones and electronic communication.  I also found letters my grandmother’s close friend, who lived about five miles from her, wrote.  Even though they lived not far from one another, it was considered quite a distance so they saw one another infrequently.  Yet they could write one another.

These letters also are treasures in art.  So many are written with the careful penmanship of those days, with scrolling letters and a fine hand.  Even when one wasn’t schooled in correct English, they wrote as distinctly and as carefully as they could.

 Will our descendants have these treasures from us?  Or will our present and future communications consist of text messages and e-mails?

 I discussed with some teachers, when I was substitute teaching recently, whether letter writing would become a lost art. With text messaging, e-mail, and other modes of electronic communication, very few people put words on paper by pen or pencil any more. Also, the creative spelling that has developed, as all ages try to communicate more quickly, almost instantly, bears no resemblance to what we learn in English class.

Do you think we’re losing something as letter writing decreases?

Post from: Blisstree

The Lost Art of Letter Writing

When we’re young and starting out in our careers, we want to be heard. We want everyone to know how we think, what our plans are and what our contributions are to the firm. We’re probably overly communicative.

Then when we hit supervisory or managerial status, (yay us, right?) something happens to our communication skills…they become lax. As our responsibilities, the expectations of others and just everyday stress increase, we somehow forget that there are others who depend on our voice in order for them to get their job done.

Here’s a common dilemma: Normally, you and someone who reports to you have a great relationship…generally, you’re both on the same page. You both understand the trajectory of the business goals…the importance of getting Sr. management’s blessing.

Then suddenly, as if out of the blue, you start demanding or, rather, surmising that certain tasks be completed in a more compressed timeframe. But here’s the rub…you didn’t tell anyone that this was your expectation. So from the perspective of those who work for you…you seem insane and unreasonable. Or maybe they think, you think…it’s not your job anymore to keep folks in the loop.

We’ve gone over planning, listening and organization at great length here. What we’ve not delved into is communication. And I don’t mean e-mails, phone calls, text messages (don’t get me started)…I mean engagement…really bringing your team into your thought process.

Here’s my advice and it’s pretty low-tech…call up the stationery supply folks in your firm, have them send you a stack of legal pads, or better yet, one of those presentation boards on which you can write down ideas with a marker. (the non permanent kind, guys.)

Plan to have brain storming sessions once a week…get those ideas, drawings, graphs in front of everyone…then discuss and start dividing repsonsibilities.

The most important aspect of this exercise is to set realistic timeframes and deadlines. Then ask one person on your team to collect weekly status updates from each team member, put it together in one document and send it to you.

In any case let your expectations be known. If you don’t, your staff will think you don’t care about what they go through all day to accomplish your goals.

Post from: Blisstree

Talk and Move Up The Organization.

This week, almost every person from whom I’ve needed information, answers, creative materials, bills, schedules or just a simple “hiya”, has not returned my e-mails. I swear I can hear the crickets chirping, it is so quiet out there.

It tells me that those who do not return my communiques, believe their time is more important than mine. Or…that my messages are just plain dull.

I understand that we are smothered by communication all day long…but in business, if someone takes the time to send you a note…you must reply.

And I don’t mean…”hi.” I mean a thoughtful response that a) acknowledges your request or observation or whatEVER. b) provides solutions or insight in an effort to keep a project moving forward.

It’s just good etiquette.

Post from: Blisstree

E-mail ettiquette