Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Welcome back!

Here we are, already two days into the 2010-11 school year, and time is just flying by. This year, I will be working a bit differently with this blog. I won't be posting every Friday, but (hopefully) more often as soon as I discover a new resource or concept.

One of the new things I have going this year is a way of booking me. I am using a service known at YouCanBook.me to help keep appointments with teachers and staff more organized by allowing people to see the times I am available for collaboration, planning, just-in-time professional development, co-teaching, and a variety of other needs that go along with my instructional technology coaching.

YouCanBook.me connects to your Google Calendar to view times when you are busy and shares times you are available through a webpage or widget (see below). To set up, you must give permission to YouCanBook.me to access your Google Calendar. You might want to create an account specifically for use with this tool, as opposed to a personal calendar you may already have set up within Google. Remember, you can copy events from one calendar to another if you like.

Once the connection is made, you have a lot of options you can set up for use. You can choose when bookings can start and end, and how long they will last (the free account provides for 15, 30, and 60 minutes) and what days are available. You can also add events directly to your Google calendar and list them as busy so they do not appear in your possible booking times. On the booking form, you can add and delete various fields for use (the Captcha field will remain to help ensure you are not spammed). There is a confirmation notice that is sent, and reminders are an option, as well. When a booking is made through YouCanBook.me, it sends you a notification and creates the event for you in your Google Calendar.

This tool may not help out many high school teachers, but you might be able to think of a use for it.

To book me, click here or use the embedded calendar below this post.

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