One of the easiest ways to increase communication with students is to create a Google Calendar for your class and share it with your students.  You can embed the calendar in a website, share it with your students so it appears in their Google Calendar or give them the link so they can add it to the calendar on their computer.  Doing all of the above can be easy and most beneficial to your students.

Steps

1.  Create a Google Calendar that has the title of your class.  When signed into your school gmail account, click on the Calendar link at the very top of the page.  This will take you to your calendar if you have not used a Google calendar before.  Click the down arrow next to “My calendars” which appears on the left side and select “Create New Calendar”..

2.  Insert the name of the class into the calendar name.  You can add a description if you want but this is not needed.  About half way down are a couple boxes you will want to select.  Click the box next to “Share this calendar with others” and the box next to “make this calendar public”.  (If you see a warning that you will make events visible to the world, just click OK because you want your students to be able to see this)

3.  Put in the important dates including when assignments are due, when assessments will be given, and any other date that you want your students to know.  You can put in the lesson plan for each day but I would start with the important dates first.  When creating new events, just click on the dates you want, add in the title, select the correct calendar, and then make sure you click “Edit event” it if you want more information to be included such as a specific time or any other information needed for this event.

4.  To make it so your students can see your calendar and sync it with their computers or their Google calendars, click the down arrow next to the calendar name on the left side and select “Calendar Settings”.

5.  If you want a link to give to your students so they can see your calendar, click the HTML button next to where it says “Calendar Address”.

A window will pop up with the link to your calendar.  You can copy this link and post it on your website or use a URL shortener like www.bit.ly and write out the shortened link on your board in your classroom.  The full link can also be inserted into the calendar app on their computers or phones so they can check it there.

6.  If you have a Google Site and want to embed the calendar into your site.  All you have to do is go to your site, click “Edit page”, select Insert on the upper left side and then select “Calendar”.  Now your calendar should be on the page on your website so they can always see it there.