Scheduling is heck

It's time to do something about scheduling. I hope the following will be of help to at least some District 65 parents.

I have created a Google calendar based on the 2007-2008 District 65 calendar (Evanston/Skokie). I may have missed a date here and there; the paper calendar is pretty confusingly presented (come on folks, you can do better than that!). Below I will present some caveats. First, here are directions for accessing the calendar.

1. You need a Google calendar account. If you don't have one, go to calendar.google.com and follow the directions to register. You can use any e-mail address to create a log in.
   
   
2. In the Google calendar screen: On the left hand side, under "calendars", there is an "Other calendars" section. Click on the "+".
   
   
3. Enter "District 65 2007" in the "search public calendars" box. You should then see "District 65, Evanston/Skokie 2007-2008", with a button to add this calendar to your calendar.
   
   
4. Any changes I make to the calendar will then be reflected in the calendars of whoever subscribes.
   
   
5. After you've added the District 65 calendar, click on the "+" again and select "Browse Calendars" in the Add Other Calendar dialog. You'll want to add the US Holidays calendar.
   

The Google calendar is free and does not come with guarantees. They obviously have amazing folks working there, but there is no guarantee that a google-based calendar will not vanish forever due to some technological hiccup. There is no guarantee that it will not be hacked (boy, wouldn't some enterprising 8th grader love to hack Google's servers and create extra vacation days!) There is (to my knowledge) no way to hook a Google calendar into Outlook (but see this page for an ambitious attempt to integrate things).

Having said this, I expect the non-Microsoft world to move towards standards-based calendar integration. Mozilla Sunbird has a Google calendar connector, but Sunbird is still very much a work in progress. I would hope (with Google's CEO on Apple's board and the iPhone coming) that the next edition of Apple's iCal will connect to Google, but this is just a hope.

I hope that by creating and sharing calendars we can begin to attack the enormous inefficiency of everyone keeping identical lists of events.