A primer on listservs for school leaders

By Anne Ward

The ability to banter fact and opinion in a worldwide forum is one of the great privileges of living in the late 20th century. For school leaders engaged in shifting the course of education for the future, it's not just good fun, it's an important part of keeping tuned in to changing times.

The Internet gives you, your colleagues, and your students easy access to listservs--e-mail based discussion forums--that put you in close, daily touch with thousands of others who can answer your questions, offer support, lead you to valuable new contacts and resources, recommend good products, and propel your thinking in productive new directions--all in record time.

Post a message, and all other subscribers to a chosen listserv will be able to read it and react, just as you can read and reply to all of theirs. Thomas Jefferson would have liked the concept: a great marketplace of ideas where the truth tends to emerge from a pool of opinions.

Topics run the gamut of personal and professional interests. Reform-minded education leaders will find scores of listservs designed just for them, and they can create their own when they want--to ease communications among committee members between meetings, for example, or to reach out to enhance discussions on a wider scale.

Once you get online with a good listserv, its value becomes obvious. Take the case of an Alexandria, Va., school administrator who was urged by colleagues to enlist high school students in building computers for the district. A query posted on Ednet and EdTech--two popular listservs for educators--reeled in a resounding "not worth the cost and trouble" from six educators who had previously considered the option.

On Ednet, participants have shared multimedia development tips, calls for papers and presentations, position announcements, their favorite web sites, sample policies on acceptable use of the Internet, and where to find the best bargains on software. EdTech's 3,500 subscribers have discussed practicalities such as the proper way to clean a mouse, how to use copyrighted music, and where to get a degree in educational technology, as well as how to define computer literacy and how to motivate hesitant teachers to use technology.

Many listservs are moderated; live humans (or one overworked individual) review all messages submitted for appropriate content and format, usually daily. Some are not forums at all, but one-way delivery of information to a list of subscribers.

Universities, governments, associations, businesses, individuals, and national and local interest groups set up and administer listservs, usually with no evident self-promotional intent. Likewise, groups that gather to discuss policy issues often simplify their subsequent communications by creating a listserv where participants can easily share their ideas between meetings.

All it takes to participate in a listserv are an e-mail address, e-mail software, and time to read and write. (Correspondence, you might have noticed, seems to flow more easily in e-mail than on paper.)

Sign up, and then what?

Once you've chosen a listserv, signing up is easy. (See below for recommended listservs and how to subscribe to them.) You'll receive from the listserv manager's computer server a welcome message that describes the list--whom it's designed to serve, what sorts of messages are acceptable, whether there is a moderator, how to communicate with the listserv administrator and with the list participants, how to control your access, etiquette for participation, and whether there is an archive. Save this message for future reference.

Then you lurk. That's the accepted term for reading the messages of other participants on the listserv without making your presence known by posting a message yourself. As you lurk, you'll learn what people are writing about, the tone of their comments, and who might make particularly good contacts for you and your colleagues.

When you're ready, you join in the discussion. Most listservs appreciate your introducing yourself in your preliminary message, telling where you work, your role there, and your special interests. If you have questions about the listserv's operation beyond those covered when you first subscribed, send a "help" message to the administrator. The administrator may post "FAQ" messages--answers to Frequently Asked Questions--on the listserv from time to time.

In some cases--perhaps you find few messages of interest, the tone is too philosophical or too practical for your needs, the level of expertise is too high or too low, or communications are distressingly vitriolic--you might choose to "unsubscribe" before you even join the discussion. On the other hand, you might be drawn into a community of online colleagues you'll grow to rely on for information and support for years to come.

Avoiding e-mail overload

Getting drawn in sometimes leads to becoming engulfed, however. Subscribe to a few active listservs, and you can easily accumulate 300 messages a week, including some valuable gems of information and communication mixed in with rubble. You don't need to just read your e-mail; you need to process it.

Try the following tips for managing your online mail:

• Activate filters (if available) in your e-mail software, portioning incoming messages according to their source. Mail about topics of special interest, from individuals you work with, from other regular correspondents, and from each listserv you subscribe to can automatically feed into separate areas, where you can more easily view what's important and make sure you don't overlook a request from the boss or the long-sought answer to a nagging question.
  
• When viewing a list of messages, scan the source names to make sure you don't overlook an individual you know, then scan the subject lines and delete messages of little interest without reading them.
  
• Electronically store messages of special interest in topical folders that you've established using your e-mail software.
  
• Temporarily unsubscribe from highly active listservs when you're away from your computer for a week or more.
  
• Remember that many listservs offer archived messages at an Internet web site, where you can view messages without having to store them yourself. Some archives even enable you to search by topic and follow related threads of messages. To check whether a listserv has an archive, check with the listserv administrator or search the web using the listserv name and "archive" as keywords.
  
• Popularize the concept of starting the subject line of messages with an appropriate keyword that will help you and others conduct subject searches when e-mail processing lags and messages pile up.
  
• If you have access to more than one e-mail address, consider establishing a "public address" in addition to a "private address" for e-mail, receiving listserv messages at the public address and messages from colleagues and friends at the private address.
  
• Consider Internet newsgroups--also called Usenet news--as an alternative to listservs. Messages posted to newsgroups, offered via your Internet access provider, are collected and stored online and can be viewed using newsreader software, which is built into many web browsers.
  

Listserv etiquette

E-mail has its own etiquette, sometimes termed netiquette. Individual listservs might have special ground rules, but here are some basics:

• Lurk before you post, so that you know how to fit in and contribute appropriately.
• Introduce yourself to the group in your preliminary posting.
• Make sure you use the correct address! Every list has two addresses: One for the list administrator, and one for the discussion forum itself.
• Reply directly to individuals if your response will not be of interest to the entire forum. And include at least your name and e-mail address at the end of your message to make it easy for others to reply directly to you.
• Type in lowercase so you won't be scolded for SHOUTING.
• When replying to a previous message, include portions of it in your message when necessary to establish context.
• Do not "flame," that is, make a rude comment or personally attack the author of another e-mail message.

Common commands

You can control your access to a listserv by communicating directly with the listserv administrator's computer server, sending it commands to perform specified functions. Commands vary somewhat among listservs, but the following are fairly standard. Type the commands--separated here by the symbols [ and ]--in the body of a message to the listserv administrator, leaving the subject line blank:

To subscribe to a listserv that has the word "listserv" at the beginning of the administrator's address:
subscribe [listserv name] [your first name] [your last name]

To subscribe to a listserv that has the word "majordomo" at the beginning of the administrator's address:
subscribe [listserv name] [your e-mail address]

To stop receiving mail from the listserv temporarily:
set [listserv name] nomail

To begin receiving mail from the listserv after a temporary stop:
set [listserv name] mail

To unsubscribe from the listserv permanently:
unsubscribe [listserv name]

To receive a summary of commands you can use to control your access to the listserv:
help

Signing off in style

The signature block at the end of your e-mail message can convey your personality and philosophy as well as your organization. In addition to your name, place of work, e-mail address, web site, and perhaps your phone and fax numbers and address, consider including a line or two of relevant wisdom. Your e-mail software probably provides a function that lets you create a signature block and have it added automatically to each message you send.

The following quotes from signatures discovered on several listservs are printed here with the permission of those who posted them:

If learning is an act of exploration, then technology equips the explorer for the journey of a lifetime.
--Craig Nansen, technology coordinator, Minot Public Schools, Minot, N.D.

The future has arrived; it's just not evenly distributed.
--cyberpunk novelist William Gibson, quoted by Ralph Malone, network system operator, Carthage Public Schools, Carthage, Ark.

Success is determined by how determined you are to succeed.
--Geoffrey Lorenz, quoted by Tabatha Sullivan, undergraduate, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
--Eleanor Roosevelt, quoted by Debbie Blailock, online forum manager, Liveworld Productions/TalkCity Education Center, San Jose, Calif.

A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are for.
--Grace Hopper, quoted by David Drumond, director, Safety Department, University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Once you've spent some time as part of an education listserv, you just might find that technology--to quote another sign-off from Craig Nansen--means "opening minds with a new set of keys."

Sidebar: E-mail shorthand

You might run across some acronyms and "smilies," also called emoticons, in listserv messages. Use them sparingly when you write, however, as some listserv participants will be unaware of their meanings.

BTW    By the way
FAQ    Frequently asked question
FYA    For your amusement
FYI    For your information
IMHO   In my humble opinion
IMO    In my opinion
IOW    In other words
LOL    Laughing out loud
OTOH   On the other hand
TIA    Thanks in advance
:-)    A basic smile expressing happiness, humor, or sarcasm
;-)    A whimsical smile, maybe expressing an inside joke
:-(    A frown
8-)    A smile from someone wearing glasses

Sidebar: Recommended listservs for school leaders

Listserv: COSNDISC, produced by the Consortium for School Networking
Administrator's e-mail address: listproc@cosn.org

Listserv: EDINFO, a one-way listserv featuring information from the U.S. Department of Education
Administrator's e-mail address: listproc@inet.ed.gov

Listserv: EDUPAGE, a one-way, biweekly summary of news about education and technology, produced by EduCom
Administrator's e-mail address: listproc@educom.unc.edu

Listserv: EDNET, about education and technology
Administrator's e-mail address: listserv@nic.umass.edu

Listserv: EDTECH, on education and technology
Administrator's e-mail address: listserv@msu.edu

Listserv: K12ADMIN, for K-12 school administrators
Administrator's e-mail address: listserv@listserv.syr.edu

Listserv: KIDSPHERE, for linking students and teachers worldwide and posting online project information
Administrator's e-mail address: listserv@vms.cis.pitt.edu

Listserv: WWWEDU, focused on educational web applications
Administrator's e-mail address: listproc@ready.cpb.org

Additional information about education-related listservs, listservs covering all topic areas, and information on how to set up your own listserv or majordomo server are available on the web.

-- Anne Ward is manager of publications for the Institute for the Transfer of Technology to Education, National School Boards Association, Alexandria, Va.