Google+Calendar

=Google Calendar=

A calendar is often thought of as a way to order or schedule the future. But it is also a record of what occurred in the past. There are numerous reasons calendars could serve as important assessment tools. Most notably, this tool may be instrumental in encouraging meta-cognition or monitoring of one’s own progress. Students may wish or may be asked to monitor their participation in a class or program or on a team to develop their self-assessment abilities. They may also be asked to participate in statistical information gathering for financial or other community support of the education program. Google Calendar is one of five tools offered in Google Apps, including Google Sites, Google Docs, Start Page and Google Talk, a chat tool.
 * Introduction**


 * Strengths and Weaknesses**
 * All are free and available online.
 * Perhaps the greatest strength of Google Calendar is its accessibility.
 * It also allows for commentary through a bubble-type function.
 * Multiple calendars can be easily established and accessed.
 * Both private and group calendars are available.
 * One of its weaknesses is the sheer volume of detail necessary to offer a calendar with such a plethora of functions. This creates a document that is not as clean-looking as a calendar could be. RKS Calendar Builder has a much cleaner appearance.


 * Example of Application of Tool in an Online Classroom**

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 * Application to Peer Mediation Programs**
 * In a peer mediation program, students can use the personal calendar to keep track of mediation events, whether participating with their peers to work through a conflict or acting as mediators for others in conflict.
 * The private calendar can be a tool for each individual participant to assess his or her own participation.
 * It may also serve as an invaluable reference document for statistical information regarding a peer mediation program. In this manner, it may serve as a critical assessment tool for a peer mediation program. //If any grant funding supports a peer mediation program, verifiable records will need to be kept by all participants for purposes of reporting. Even without external funding and reporting requirements, accountability will demand records to be kept and will offer many opportunities for assessment of the program.//
 * Mediation sessions conclude with written contracts between the disputants. These may be revisited at specified time intervals for review and or revision, three months, six months or a year later. If there were challenging interactions after the contract was created, it would be useful to keep track of such events.
 * Mediators may want to assess their involvement – how frequently they served as a mediators, whether they mediated by themselves or with someone else, noting if a successful contract was generated and if, when and with whom they debriefed after the session. Weekly or biweekly training and discussion sessions are an integral part of any program.
 * The calendar will also provide an ease with which to monitor each students’ mediation training and program participation.
 * The calendar can be used to assess an interval of program outreach, say three months or six months. Bubbles may hold key statistical information about event attendance, discussion participants, blog responses and the like.
 * Adults working with the peer mediation program can also rely on the calendar to assist them in assessing program activity and successfulness. They can record their participation in debriefing sessions, general discussions, trainings as well as their participation in professional learning community activities. As with the students, this sort of record-keeping will provide a verifiable basis on which to assess the program and, if need be, to report to foundations regarding grant-funded activities.
 * Students will be encouraged to use the calendar with brief notes about each experience, any interaction in-between sessions and where the interactions took place (discussion, blog, email…) to assess their initial experiences with conflict resolution through peer mediation . In courses on peer mediation for educators and para-educators, negotiation and mediation training will be integral to the course. Multiple role playing sessions will take place.

RKS Software offers the Calendar Builder, a calendar software for Windows. The calendars are clean and aesthetically pleasing with choices of many color icons. The only reason I didn’t choose this one is because of the need to download it to one computer and the cost. Some para-educators, who are so often hired to manage conflict on the playgrounds and in the cafeterias and hallways, will not have their own home computers.
 * Final Thoughts**