Hi there!

Now that you’re adding buttons and making changes willy-nilly in your online courses, let’s consider THIS change!

You’re familiar with google calendars now; you’ve used them to track a few of your goals and appointments.  Now it’s time to take it to the next level.  If you’re a course lead, create a new calendar in your  ncvps account.  In the calendar, add the assignments that are due in the next two weeks.

You’ve got your calendar ready now; it’s time to spread the love!  Hit the upside down triangle beside your calendar’s name, and select ‘calendar settings.’  Toward the bottom of the screen, you’ll see an embed code (ta-daaaa!).

There is a number beside the height and width.  It looks like this:

width=”800″ height=”600″

You’ll multiply those numbers by 1.5, changing the numbers to 1200 and 900, respectively.  This will make the calendar bigger and easier to read for students.

Next, add a button in your course and add a single item within that button.  Using firefox, insert the code into the item you’ve added.  Now, your course should have a button that has the due dates.  You’ll updated this every couple of weeks.  That’s actually more work than just posting a .doc with a bunch of dates… but check THIS out.

Your next step is to email this code to everyone teaching the course.  If they’ll also create a button and drop the calendar into their courses, then you’ll have a cool web 2.0 calendar in your course -aren’t YOU fancy!

So, now everyone has a cool calendar, and your revision teams don’t have to waste time creating that pain in the butt .doc -remember, snow happens.

shu

Tags: google education, online education