Keep It All Organized with Google Calendar

Last week, I posted about the benefits and barriers of Gmail for students with disabilities. This week's topic is Google Calendar- a webapp I love, love, love. Once again, we'll be taking a look at the ways that Google Calendar can make life easier for students with disabilities, as well as some of the need-to-know accessibility info.



Before we dive into the nitty-gritty, however, let's spend a moment on why on earth you'd use Google Calendar in the first place. After all, you only have a few classes each day, right? Or maybe you started using a paper planner back in high school and that's worked, pretty much. Here's the reasons a web-based, multi-platform calendar can be a student's best friend:

• If you're like many students, the hassle of writing multiple events in a paper calender keeps you from doing it at all! Recurrent events (like, uh, classes? work?) are easy to plug in: one entry and you're done for however long the event lasts. That means you can enter all your classes for the term and they all show up where they're supposed to, with a whole lot less fuss.
• Reminders to your cell phone about events (I'll get to that in a minute)
• Subscribe to public calendars and know what's going on around town
• Share calendars with your family and everyone will know who's where - without clutter
• Access your calendar from any computer and on multiple devices (including both "smart" and "dumb" cell phones!)
• Never lose the darn thing
• Deleting stuff is much easier than erasing
• Incorporate a to-do list with Tasks

Making the Switch

Google Calendar has been around awhile, so, like Gmail, there's a host of information on how to use it. Here's my recommendations:

• the GAapps SOU page for some handy how-to-switch and how-to-use resources
• Mashable has a good how-to guide for getting the best out of Google Calendar

The Bottom Line: Google Calendar Accessibility

The list of barriers for Google calendar are primarily vision-related, as Calendar is a highly visual app. Here's the highlights here of accessibility barriers and any recommended workarounds. For those so inclined, there's also Google's statement about Calendar accessibility.

• Screenreader users: Google's worked to make the calendar mostly accessible, though you will have to take a couple of extra steps to get there. Check out the guide to accessing Calendar with screenreaders
• Keyboard users: Tabbing through the calendar is limited because the calendar itself doesn't support defined keyboard focus. Instead, use keystrokes. I also recommend taking a look through the screenreader guide above, as screenreaders will be using many of the same navigation strategies you will.
• High contrast color settings: Microsoft Windows' high contrast display settings may be overridden by Google Calendar for some calendar elements. I don't really have a good workaround for this one, unfortunately.
• Color coding: Calendar uses significant color coding to differentiate between different users' calendars. If you are only ever looking at your own, no worries. If you're looking at multiple calendars, however, adjust the calendar colors to be workable for you.
• Form labels: Bleck. This is one thing that's totally within Google's control to fix, and thus far remains an issue without a workaround.

This is entirely my personal opinion, but if I were a screenreader user, I'd almost certainly ignore Google Calendar on the web and sync it with the more screenreader-friendly Microsoft Outlook or in iCal with VoiceOver. It's a bit funky to transform information from a nonlinear, visual app to a linear, nonvisual one.

Unique Ways Google Calendar Benefits Students with Disabilities

Google Calendar really shines for any student with challenges in organization... so basically, all students, right? (Ok, there's a few organized ones. Y'all will loooove this.) Here's how:

• Calendar can be set to automatically send reminders to your cell phone. I can't tell you how excited I've seen students get over this feature. Combine automated reminders with the ability to easily schedule recurring events... whoo!
• Color coding: Yes, I know I said this was a barrier in the section above. Face it, some things can be both. For students with organization, attention, or learning challenges, color coding can be a huge help. Once faculty and staff make the switch, I plan to use this to keep my personal calendar (which I already use Google Calendar for) viewable with my work calendar... so I can actually see all of the things I have going on on one calendar, but I can tell which is which easily. Hooray for color coding!
• Multiple calendars: See all your calendars at once (personal, academic, SOU events, family other public calendars) or see only one or two at a time - it's entirely your choice, and easy to switch between those views. A huge boon for those who get overwhelmed by too much on the screen at one time.
• Multiple devices: See your calendar on any computer, any time. Got an iPod touch? It works on that. Got a smartphone of some variety? It works on that. You can even check your calendar from any phone that can text and create new events by sending a text!

Google Calendar Settings & Labs for Accessibility

These are my recommendations; choose what's most appropriate for you. Your mileage may vary, yada yada.

Settings

• Default view: set to what works for you, depending on how much screen clutter you can actually tolerate vs. how far ahead you need to be looking. Same with whether it shows weekends and the weather.
• Enable keyboard shortcuts: For most people, click YES. Shortcuts are the fastest way to move around the calendar and are not difficult to learn, especially if learned one at a time.
• Mobile setup: enables you to get all those nifty reminders, create calendar events with just a text, and other fun/helpful things.

Labs

• Smart Rescheduler: Particularly helpful if you are using Calendar to schedule group meetings. This lab enables you to quickly find a time that works for everybody, based on what they've got entered in their calendar.


• Background Image: This is a possible solution for those who need to avoid white backgrounds for glare/readability reasons. Instead of picking an image, create a small graphic of a solid color that helps with the readability and upload it to a service like Flickr or Photobucket. You may need to play with this a bit, but it's entirely do-able.


• Next Meeting: This adds a little box on the right that tells you not only what your next calendared event is, but how far away it is (in days, hours, and minutes). Helpful for those of us who have difficulty visualizing the passage of time.

In the next post, it's all about the Google Docs - and hoo, boy, is there a lot to talk about there! In the meantime, if you have questions you'd like answered or features I've missed, please hit up the comments.