How-To: Make Teaching Easier with allcal

A good teacher is a lot of things – mentor, listener, caretaker, and friend.

That’s not all. A good teacher also needs to be able to keep track of assignments, attendance, meetings with parents – all while keeping their students in the loop. Basically, a good teacher is also a good manager.

When it comes to teaching you can make managing your 20+ students (or more if you teach more than one class) a little bit easier by using the free allcal app.

The shared calendar app can help you stay organized by keeping all of your class schedules in one place. You can even share the calendar with all your students and feel confident they’ll get any updates you make to your syllabus. Allcal even lets you add reminders to each event in case you want to remind students of a particularly important assignment. Allcal adds a new element to teaching that’s never been done before.

How To Set It Up:

Creating a Private Calendar 

1. Download the allcal app and create an account.
2. Create a Private Calendar by tapping the Main Menu on the upper left of the screen and tapping on Add calendar.
3. Name your calendar.
   Allcal Hack: Use the name of your class with the section number, such as “Prof. Davis’ Math 2B”.
4. Add a description and color to your calendar.
5. Tap the Save button in the top right hand corner to complete your calendar once you are done designing it.
6. You should now see your private calendar appear on your My Calendars page.

Sharing your Private Calendar

1. Tap the Calendar Settings (three small dots) on the right across the title of the calendar with the calendar open.
2. Tap on the Calendar Sharing section towards the bottom of the screen. If this is your first time sharing a calendar, the allcal app will ask to access your contacts in order to make it easier to find the students that you want to share the calendar with. Select OK to let the app access your contacts.
3. Find your students’ accounts by typing in their names in the search bar once your students have made Allcal accounts.
4. Tap on their names and tap Share to add them to the class calendar.

A notice or email will be sent asking the student to add the calendar to their account. Once they’ve accepted the share, the students’ names and permissions will be shown on the Sharing page. The students will also have access to the calendar and all its events.

Adding events to your Private Calendar

1. Tap the diamond icon on the upper right to create an event.
2.  Add the title and description for your event such as “Unit 2 test” “50 questions plus essay”.
   Allcal Hack: Descriptions can be as long as you want, but all of it might not be visible on certain screens.
3. Tap on the Start Date Time to pick when the event will start. This option will ask you the start month, date, year, and the exact time.
4. Tap on the End Date Time button and select exactly when you want the event to end.
5. Add the location, timezone, and even a reminder if you want to make sure students get an extra alert before an assignment or test.

Now every student you’ve shared the class calendar with will be able to see all the events you add. The students can also link the events onto their personal calendars, so they can plan their own schedules. Unlike other calendar solutions, the link will stay alive – meaning if you make any changes to the events, the students will immediately get those updates on their own calendars.

For more in-depth instructions on how to use the allcal app, check out our User Manual and as always you can contact us via email, team@allcal.com with any questions you may have.