I sometimes get asked, usually at an off-site meeting or conference, about why it’s important to keep up with some of the latest technologies in schools. I often cite the need to be prepared, about starting small, and evolving into new trends that are likely to have a lasting impact in the lives of our students.

“Indeed, educators recognize the need to increase the in-school emphasis on media literacy as a way to help students think critically about traditional and new media, including on the Internet and in video production.”

A recent article talks about this, and ties it to maintaining twenty-first century skills. It’s an interesting, short read.

For a year, I’ve been using a third-party application to try and sync my calendars between a desktop computer at work, my laptop, and my desktop computer at home. On top of this, trying to keep phones in sync with events has been… a challenge.

This morning I set my work computer to sync with my Google calendar. This is a feature Google added this summer. I am going to detail how I got this to work with Mac OS X Leopard and iCal 3.0.5. Others migrating here to Leopard may want to take advantage of this functionality.

1. Set up a Google Calendar account. If you’re a Goochland teacher, you can do this through your Google Docs access. Click on “Calendar” in the top-left-hand side of the Google apps environment to access the calendar.
2. Fire up iCal version 3, that supports CalDAV.
3. Read over the instructions found at LifeHacker. I used this as a guide, but made changes to get it to work.
4. Grab the correct URL from Google. Under calendar settings, visit the Calendar Address section, and grab the URL for iCal.

5. In iCal, go to Preferences and visit the Accounts area. You’re going to add a new account for Google. Put in your Google account information (email and password) but under “Advanced”, for the URL, add the URL you copied from step 4. I changed the http:// header to https:// for encryption.

6. Close the iCal settings, and a new calendar should appear in your sidebar.
7. You can “Get Info” on this new calendar (right-click) and change settings, such as how often it syncs with Google.

What’s the point?

You’re now using Google to keep your calendar. You can enter appointments on either iCal or by going to Google’s online calendar. Either way, the two calendars will remain in sync.

Furthermore, I can repeat this process on more computers (even using desktop calendars other than iCal), and keep my calendar in sync on every computer I use. No matter where I add items, they’ll be sent to Google, and to all the other sync-ed calendars.

Lastly, if you sync your phone with your desktop calendar, it too will grab the items from there, and consequently, those that are on your Google calendar.

If you have success with these instructions, drop me a line in the comments.

Today in our TechTimes Live Podcast, I published a new 5.5 minute video designed for budding middle school researchers. It could also be used in grades 5 and likely in high school, too. I plan, however, on making variations of this video for both younger and older students.

I will be placing a copy of this video on our internal server for Promethean flipchart sharing so that GMS teachers can copy this video and use it in the classroom before assigning a  research project with students.

While GCPS owns the copyright of this work, we’re making it publicly available to other schools who may find it useful. If there is great demand, I will host it on Vimeo instead of our own server.

Cool Cat Teacher is linking to information from Tony Wagner on the importance of “rigor” in education. I know that’s an undercurrent this year for us at GHS. She also points to a good article entitled “Rigor Redefined” (link). This is great reading for our teachers.