Chris Pultz
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08:29:39 am on January 21, 2011 | # |
Now that we have a fantastic calendar tool that opens alongside your email, teachers might appreciate the ability to have topic specific calendars that students (or the public) can view or subscribe to. Think homework, classroom events, student of the week, spelling lists, etc.
Here is a video that covers this process, or you can follow the steps below.
NOTE: Your personal calendar is called “Calendar” and should contain your meetings, appointments, and other events. If you are choosing to share calendar information with students or parents, you will want to create another calendar specific to that audience.
Creating a publicly viewable calendar
1. Create a new calendar in Zimbra by clicking the “New” drop down menu at the top of your calendars and selecting “Calendar“.
Add a new calendar.
2. Right-click (Control+click) on the calendar you just created and select “Sharing.”
A Right-Click offers quick access to many shortcuts.
3. On the Sharing window that pops up, choose “Public” from the “Share with” area at the top. Click “OK” at the bottom.
Make sure to click OK at the bottom of this window BEFORE you try to click the link provided.
4. Right-click (Control+click) on the calendar again. In the “Sharing” window click on the “VIEW” link provided at the bottom. This should open the calendar in a web page (Firefox).
5. Copy the URL of the public facing calendar’s page for use elsewhere.
Publicize your calendars
You can link to this calendar from your LPS Profile Page, include it in an email message to parents or students, place it in Pinnacle course descriptions, or link to the calendar from your WordPress site.
Teachers who wish to maintain calendars for multiple classes might want to create a different calendar for each class. To make it easy for students to locate your calendars, you can link to the individual class calendars from a list created on a single WordPress page called “Homework Calendars.”
One simple way to organize calendars for your students would be a list of them in a WordPress page.
Choose the right Calendar
When adding events to your calendar, Zimbra will default to your personal calendar. To have the event appear on a specific course calendar, select it from the drop down in the event creation window.
Remember to select the calendar you want the event to appear on when you are creating the event!
Be even MORE useful
You will also like to know that the notes field at the bottom is an excellent way to share additional information, beyond the name of the event. Consider including directions, spelling words, links to online resources, etc.