Create a Class Calendar

Transcription

1 To use Google Calendar, you ll need a Google account. If you do not have an account, you can create one at Once you have established an account, log into your Google account. Create a Class Calendar The first thing to do is to create your calendar. I create a calendar for each of my classes and also maintain a personal calendar to keep track of my activities that are not class related. 1. Select Calendar from the menu at the top of your Google page. 2. Along the left side of the Calendar page you ll see an area title My Calendars. You should see one personal calendar that is created by default. In the picture below you see one personal calendar, Dave Graser, and a class calendar, MAT 152 Spring From the drop down menu to the right of My Calendars, select Create new calendar. 3. On the Create New Calendar page, give the calendar a name and description.

2 You can also assign the calendar a time zone. To ensure that you can share the calendar with your class, make sure the box next to Make this calendar public is checked. 4. At the top of the page, select Create Calendar. A warning will be shown indicating that all events on the calendar will be visible. Since that is the intent of a class calendar, select Yes. Navigating the Class Calendar Once you have created the calendar for your class or maybe several classes, you want to be able to view the calendar in an appropriate view. Each calendar is assigned a color under My calendars. By clicking on each calendar, you can show or hide the different calendars you have created. For instance, in the picture below, I have turned off all of the calendars except Test Calendar by clicking on them. I know that the Test Calendar is shown since I see it grey color in the area to the left of Test Calendar. Test Calendar is shown since it is highlighted with its color. You can make more than one calendar visible simply by selecting it. In the upper right corner of the screen are options for what portion of the calendar is displayed. I usually use the Monthly calendar for my class calendars.

3 Add an All-Day Event to Your Calendar There are several types of events you may add to your calendar. Some types are useful for showing events that run all day like the first day of classes. Other types are useful for showing when class meets or when office hours are held. Let s start by adding an all-day event called First Day of Classes. This event will occur on January Select Create from the left side of your calendar. This will open a new page like the one below. Fill out the event details. Make sure All day is checked.

4 2. Make sure you save your event to the appropriate calendar. It is a common mistake to save it to your personal calendar instead of the class calendar. If you want to add this event to other class calendars, you can copy it later. 3. To save the event to the class calendar, select Save in the upper right corner of this page. 4. On your calendar, you should see an event like the one below on the appropriate date. 5. Now let s look at this event more closely. If you click on the event in the calendar, you will see the details shown below. 6. You can edit the event by selecting Edit event. This will allow you to change any of the details you entered earlier. If you select copy to my calendar, you can add this event to any of your other Google calendars.

5 Add a Several-Day Event to Your Calendar I like to break the semester into individual weeks and label them in the calendar. By adding what is covered each week, I create a roadmap for what they should be doing each week. I am going to create an event spanning 1/21/13 through 1/25/13 called Week 2 Sections 1.3 and From the calendar page, select Create from the left side of the page. Enter the details shown below. Note that I have changed the color to green for this type of announcement. I have also added information in the description indicating what they should be doing. You

6 can also enter html hyperlinks in this area. I use these links to send students to the class blog which includes supplementary course materials and videos. 2. Save the event using the button in the upper left corner of the window. 3. If you now click on the event in the calendar view, you can see the details of the event. 4. Now let s create an event corresponding to the class meetings with occur on Monday and Wednesday each week from 12:00 to 12:50PM. From the calendar page, select Create. Enter an event name and check the box next to Repeat. This will open the Repeat dialog box where you can enter the details about the repetition.

7 Select Done to return to editing the event. 5. Complete the rest of the details for the event. Since this describes a class meeting, it is a good idea to select Busy next to Show me as.

8 Now Save this event and return to the calendar page. You should now see the class meetings in the class calendar.

9 6. Once I have my recurring events in the calendar, I like to customize them to let my student know exactly what will be covered on each day. To do this, click on the event you want to edit. Select Edit event. 7. Under the Description of the event, add information about that class meeting. As show below, you can also add hyperlinks to content using some simple html. 8. Select Save. When you save a recurring event, you will be prompted to indicate whether you want to change this individual event, the individual event and all following events, or all events. Since we are only making changes to this individual class meeting, select Only this event.

10 Sharing the Calendar Using the techniques described above, you may create very useful calendars for your students. However, if you can t give your students easy access to the calendar it is time wasted. When we set up the calendar, we made the calendar public. Now we ll generate a little html code and paste it into a class management system like MyLabsPlus or blackboard. This strategy can be used anywhere you can enter html code. 1. Click on the drop down menu next to Test Calendar. You will see the choices shown below. Select Share this Calendar. 2. In the upper left corner you will see an option for Calendar Detail. Select this option.

11 3. Midway down the page is an area titled Embed This Calendar. Next to the calendar icon is a short snippet of html code. You can embed this code in a web page to lin to your calendar. Select the link Customize the color, size, and other options. 4. Use the Google Embeddable Calendar Helper to customize the appearance of the class calendar for the web page. Once you are satisfied with the appearance of the calendar, press Update HTML to ensure the code in the box is up to date. Copy this code to the clipboard.

12 5. Now open your learning management system or blog. Go to the area you normally enter text in. The screen below shows the text editor in MyLabsPlus. Other management systems have similar editors. Make sure that the editor is set to HTML mode. There should be a button in the editor that allows you to input HTML code directly. Make sure this option is selected. Paste the HTML code into the text editor. 6. Save the page and open it in view mode so that you can see the calendar. It should look similar to the one shown below.

13 Up to this point, the descriptions we have been entering have not been visible. If you click on the class meeting for January 14, you will now see the description. The HTML link is also active. Now you have a class calendar embedded in your class that your students can use to track when assignments are due or what is being covered in class.