Use of Google Tools in Classrooms

My group checked out Google Calendar and it is an easy way for teachers, coaches, administrators and students to share time-related info like class topics, test and quizzes, field trips, student club activities, team schedules, assignment deadlines, school events, parent-teacher conferences, staff meetings with other teachers and administrators, and school holidays. Changes made by a calendar organizer are automatically seen by anyone who checks the site, so it is always up to date. You can set up separate calendars for each of your classes and share each one with a designated group of students, parents or the entire community. Having a common online tool to store and share all of our calendar information is so much more efficient than expecting everyone to keep track of a thousand events, calendars, and handouts. Not only are you posting the event date and time, but any other descriptive or pertinent information can also be accessed just by clicking on the event. So, for example, instead of having a field trip handout that you hope actually reaches parents' hands, parents can sign up to access the calendar and have all the information they need for the field trip posted under that event. Google calendar is more efficient, easily accessed, more organized, saves paper, and best of all it's free, which is great for schools on a tight budget! You can also choose to have email updates when the calendar is changed or updated. This is a cool tool that hopefully I'll remember to use in my classroom rather than having to set up a class website.