Google+ Pictures & Email Signatures
September 12, 2013
Tags: Gmail, Google, Google Apps, Policy
Google+ Profile Pictures
Google+ provides a wonderful network for teachers to engage with other educators, share, and learn. Within Google+, teachers can engage with their colleagues at school, across District 21, and even around the world. Part of living in the world online is representing oneself in that space. Like many sites, Google+ uses a profile picture, and this picture consistently serves as a user’s picture throughout Google Apps. For your CCSD21 Google Apps account, the Google+ profile picture should simply include a photo of your face or face and torso. The idea is to represent oneself professionally as a CCSD21 staff member. Your children, pets, hobbies, or favorite baseball cap should not be included in this picture. At the same time, smile, get a nice background, or just use the webcam on your laptop and get your picture uploaded if you have not already done so! Click here for more information on setting up Google+.
Gmail Signature
At this time, CCSD21 is going to standardize the information that employees are expected to put in their email signatures. This is necessary to ensure that:
- Email signatures contain the necessary contact information for other staff members, parents, community members, and those that contact us via email know who we are and what we do within CCSD21
- Email signatures no longer contain individual statements of District policies or practices made by individual employees (e.g., “confidentiality statements” should not be included)
- Email signatures do not contain quotations or other “position statements” made by individual employees since we are both a public (governmental) organization and our email signatures are not an open forum
- Email signatures do not contain images, which unnecessarily use space in the email inboxes of recipients, which are typically limited in size–even in Google Apps!
Email signatures should include the following items:
- Name, Position
- Full school name (or “Community Consolidated School District 21” if working at the Gill Administration Center or in a District-wide capacity) – City, Illinois, USA (Include the dash “-” between the school name and the city, state, country information)
- Telephone number (Typically, the main phone number for your school. Please use either “.” or “-” to separate the portions of the telephone number.)
- The full URL (website address) of the school website
Gmail Signature Example 1–Classroom teacher
Gmail Signature Example 2–Staff member working in two schools
Directions for setting up your Gmail signature
1. First, click on the “gear” button on the right side of Gmail when you are in your Inbox as pictured below.
2. In the General tab of the Gmail settings, scroll down until you find the signature settings. Once there, you can enter your signature. You can also make adjustments to the font size, etc. (In the examples above, the only setting changed was shrinking the font to the smallest font size.)
3. Finally, after you have entered your signature, be sure to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and click the “Save Changes” button as pictured below.
Topic: Tech Tips
Each District 21 school is named after an American author, and learning and literacy is at the center of our Professional Learning Community. The Modern Pen provides a collaborative location in which District 21 teachers can come together to learn the skills that will enable their students to learn new skills and to understand concepts at an even different level than before.
Preparing all students for success
