Appointments Made Easy with Google Calendar!

My new position requires me to go to 6 different schools throughout the week. As I was trying to think of ways to allow teachers to pick times that work for them, I figured...Google Calendar MUST have appointments capability.
After a quick Google search, what do you know...it does and it's very easy!

Here's the link to Google Help with the directions. 
Use Google Calendar Appointment Slots 

Since anyone can read the directions themselves to create appointment slots, I thought I would just give suggestions as to how to use it depending on your position.

Coaches 

Create appointments labeled for the schools you plan on being at each day.  I have morning and afternoon groups since I sometimes split my day between 2 schools. I created a QR code from the share link so I can give it to my teachers and administrators on a flyer or business card. All they have to do is scan and pick an open time that's designated for their school.  When they schedule an appointment, I get an email where I can accept it or decline.  This is very helpful when teachers often do their lesson plans in the evening when you aren't easily accessible.  

Teachers

Create appointments for parent conferences to allow them to have some choice on days that you are willing to stay for them.  The good thing about appointments, you can take them off individual days or make them repeat for the entire year on a specific day.  Even after they choose a time, you still have the chance to decline the appointment if you have plans or forgot to change your calendar.  Having these in one place makes it easy to share with your administration just by giving them access to your calendar.  This could be a great tool for keeping you organized as well as documentation! 

Students

Now that students usually have access to a Gmail account, students have access to a calendar and it's a great tool for training them to get organized at a young age.  This idea is really for teachers but can be used by the students as well. 
In the classrooms I go into, students are often working at their own pace. Since students are working on different skills throughout the day, they need to schedule a time to show evidence to their teacher that they're ready to move onto the next standard or activity. 
I could see this as a perfect opportunity for students to use a teacher apt. calendar to schedule those times.  
No discussion or permission needed.  They pick an apt. time after scanning the teacher's calendar QR code and the teacher gets an email notification as well as the apt. added to his/her calendar automatically.

QR Code creators...

Since I mentioned created QR codes a few times in this post, I thought I'd give my favorite ways to do so for anyone who hasn't used them yet. 
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1. QRStuff.com is my go-to website for creating QR code.  It's really easy to use!  First you choose the data type, which is already set to Website URL when you click to open the page.  Then you paste the website URL into the text box. The QR code is created and you can download it.  You choose how you want to use it from here.  Ideas: Create and print postcards with the QR code to display, Paste it onto your daily Smart Notebook template that's displayed throughout the day.  Go to Canva.com and create a nice visual for your calendar QR code.

2. Google Chrome extension goo.gl URL Shortener is a really easy way to create QR codes as well as shorten your website URL for easy typing.  Once you add it to Chrome, all you have to do is click the icon to the right of the URL you want to create a QR code for, and choose "QR Code".  When you see the image, you can right click and save it or copy it to use it immediately. 

Kids & adults love using QR codes!  It's a great alternative to typing a URL yourself and hoping you typed it right. I do recommend adding the shortened URL to the bottom of your QR codes when you display them for those who don't have a QR scanner on their phone or iPad.  I could go on with ways to use QR codes, but that's for another post. :)

Have fun!
Leave a comment & share if you find this helpful. ~Pam