Calendars for distance learning

24Mar10

I like to use a Google calendar to keep track of the important events (when the tutor is online, what activities are being covered each week, deadlines for assignments) in my distance learning course.  It’s really, really useful for me, as it means I don’t have to log into the VLE just to check dates.  It’s all there in the calendar I use every day.  That led me to thinking – would the distance learning students on the modules I develop at work like a ready-made calendar with all the course events in it, which they can import into their own calendar app at home/work?  So, I had a go, it’s not difficult at all, and the longest bit is actually adding the events.  Here’s what I did.

A. Create a new calendar in Google

1. In the left-hand menu of Google Calendar, go to the ‘My calendars’ panel, and click the Create link at the bottom.
2. Enter a Calendar Name and click Create Calendar.

B. Create all the appropriate events for the course in the new calendar.

C. Export as iCal (.ics) file

1. In the left-hand menu of Google Calendar, go to the ‘My calendars’ panel, and click the Settings link at the bottom.
2. Click the Export calendars link
3. Gives an Open/Save window – choose save (to save it to computer)
4. A zip file is created on local computer with an .ics file for each of the different Google calendars you have.  Unzip it and delete all the other .ics files (obvious by the name which to keep), so you’re left with one .ics
5. Optional – change the name of the .ics file, as it has a very long filename. 

D. Upload the .ics somewhere your students can get it
(you could upload to your VLE/LMS in the same way you would upload any file)

Note: Exporting as iCal (.ics) meant it can be imported into many popular calendar programs, such as Outlook, Windows Live (hotmail) Calendar, Google calendar, Lotus Notes and iCal.

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