Message Board The Learning Group is proud to announce the addition of a message board.  This board is enabled using Yahoo Groups, and can be accessed in one of two ways.  If you prefer to work using your email program, you can send messages to the group using the email address mbodlg@yahoogroups.com You have several options for receiving messages by email as well.  You can choose to receive none, a single email message for every message posted to the group, or a convenient daily digest containing the days emails.  To configure your settings click here. The second way to participate in the message board is by using the simple web based interface.  Click here to access the message board.  If this is the first time you have accessed the message board, you may be asked to fill out a simple registration form. Guide to Using Yahoo Groups An e-group is an Internet-based resource that combines the features of a list server with those of a web page. The former allow members to communicate easily and to refer to archived messages; the latter allows document sharing, polling, calendaring and other project management features. There are many such services, but we are using the one that is by far the most popular, Yahoo Groups. For information on Yahoo Groups click here. Yahoo Groups is easy to use, and it has a help system. In a sense, then, this document is unnecessary. However, if you have never used an e-group, there is a learning curve; and we all know that help systems never seem to answer the particular question that we have. Registering The hardest part of e-groups seems to be getting in! Yahoo takes precautions to make sure that moderators do not add people who do not really want to be members. It may be that these sometimes lead to glitches. You should get an e-mail invitation from Yahoo. If you have not already enrolled with Yahoo Group, this involves setting up a user name and password. Tip: When you enroll, click on “Remember Me” so that Windows will save your name and password. If you do not do so, you will have to enter these every time you access the web page. (Yahoo will from time to time ask for your password anyway.) After you respond to this message, Yahoo sends the e-group moderator a message that you applied. When the moderator approves that membership, you are added to the group. Our e-group is a so-called “closed” one. Only people who are approved by the moderator may become members. Sending Messages You can send a message to everyone in the e-group by using the address mbodlg@yahoogroups.com. You can enter this into your Contacts list to save addressing time. Another way to send a message is to click on Post in the left hand pane of any e-group web page. This takes you to a web form where you can type in the message. Controlling Your E-mail By default, Yahoo sends you each message as it is posted. If, however, you are concerned about getting too much e-mail, you can change the settings. To do this, click on Edit My Membership in the upper right hand corner of any page in our e-group. You can then choose to get a Daily Digest. Under this option, all messages sent during each day are lumped together and sent to you in one package. Or you can choose No E-mail Status. You can in this case read the messages, if and when you want to by clicking here. Replying to a Message When you receive an e-mail message from the e-group or when you read a message from the posts and you wish to reply, be careful to think about whether your response should go to the whole group or just to the person who sent the message. It is very easy to mistakenly send everyone in the group messages better directed to, or even intended for, just one person. "Reply" in e-mails from the e-group is actually "Reply to All". If you are not careful, you may be send messages to people who don’t need to read them – or even whom you don’t want to read them! Also, if you “Reply”, the text of the message that you are answering will automatically be included in your e-mail. This is not good etiquette: you should remove or edit it. If you send a message to the group, you will get copy and the message will be archived. This usually takes only a few minutes, but on occasions there can be delays. Sending an Individual Message What if you want to send a message, not to the whole group, but to just one person in it? Of course you can just open a new e-mail and type or insert that person’s address (removing the group address if you are replying to a message). Alternatively, you can go to the members page and click on the e-mail address of the person to whom you want to write. This opens up a form for typing in an individual message. Web Page The home page for our e-group is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mbodlg/. There is really not that much to see on this page; from the left hand pane (of this and each web page), you can go to any page to use the various features, most of which are explained below. Tip: When you leave the web page, do NOT click on Log Out. If you do that, you will have to log in when you return, even if you told Windows to save your password. Posting a File Any member can post a document. This has many advantages over sending an attachment, perhaps the most important being that these documents can be stored in a file folder system for use and reference. Yahoo will accept just about any kind of file, as long it is not too big (in which case you can use file compression). It will also attempt to identify the type of file with an icon. To post a file, access the Files section at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mbodlg/files/. Find the appropriate folder to put it in. (You can create a new folder if you want by clicking Create Folder.) Once you are in the folder, click on Add File. You then browse to where the file is on you PC and select it. You can give your a file description so that people know what it is. Of course the file name itself may be sufficient for that purpose. Yahoo provides an option where you can send a message from this page announcing to the group that the file has posted.  Reading a File You can go to the Files section and click on any file name and it will open in your browser so that you can read it. Saving a File You can also save the file to your PC. You can do this after you have opened it in your browser. Alternatively (and usually better), right click the file and choose Save Target As. Managing Files You can delete your own files but not those posted by other people. You can cut and paste files to move them from one folder to another. Message Archive All of the posted messages are archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mbodlg/messages. You can do a key word search to find an old message.  Polls Polls can be a very useful feature. There can be multiple choices offered, and poll results can be displayed in various ways. Creation of a poll automatically sends a message to all members about the poll, but is limited to administrators. If you would like to poll the membership, contact the administrator. The poll notification contains a link to the screen where one can vote. You can also click on Polls on the left-hand pane of the web page or otherwise go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mbodlg/polls.  After you have voted, you can change your vote as long the poll is still open. Other Features The Calendar section http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mbodlg/cal allows a group to share calendars. Creation of a calendar entry is limited to administrators. If you would like to add an event, contact the administrator. The Photos section http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/mbodlg/lst allows you to post picture in albums (folders). Of course you could just as well put picture files in the Files section; however this section allows thumbnails and other features. Summary Yahoo Groups is a powerful resource. Whether you are working with someone at the next desk or hundreds of people on different continents, it allows joint communication and project management. And when you are done with the project, you can leave it up for future reference. We hope that you enjoy the message board.  To provide feedback, contact Web Operations at webmaster@learninggroup.org.