So what, exactly, is good netiquette? "A lot of it has to do with tone -- how you ask for things," says Shawn Morris, administrative coordinator of Wichita eSchool, a virtual public school in Wichita, Kansas, that reviews netiquette dos and don'ts with students. No "SHOUTING" and avoiding IM-speak in formal messages are among the most common guidelines. (See "Don't Even Think About It: The Basics of Netiquette," below, and "Beyond Emily: Post-ing Etiquette.")
Good online communication is especially important in virtual schools, where most interaction happens digitally. But with the Internet an ever-larger part of most students' lives, brick-and-mortar schools from Longmont, Colorado, to Modesto, California, are starting to teach netiquette, too.
Add in grammatically incorrect status updates and wildly inappropriate online photos, and Facebook represents a sort of maniac microcosm for the etiquette problems that exist in our everyday society.
