Online Scheduler for Computer Lab

[T. Graham]

I would like for my teachers to be able to make reservation to use the computer lab online/electronically. Online calendars such as Google offer the ability to sign up by date and time. However, there is no way to change the time slots. I need something to that will let me use periods (1st period, 2nd period, etc) rather than time. Anyone have any ideas? Our school network is Novell (I think)... could it do this or is there something online?

Thanks..........Taunya

[Jennifer Arnott]

We've been using a module in our Moodle installation this year - it's been working really well.

We have rows down the side for each block (ours meet in a different order each day): 1, 2, ... 7, tutorial. We have columns for each room or computer lab people would be reserving. (two carts of laptops, three labs, and the library divided into 2 areas, so we know how many classes will be in here. Teachers can sign in themselves, or all of the library/tech staff have admin rights so we can enter things, move things around, etc. if we have to.

It's been working surprisingly smoothly: faculty learned how to use it very easily (we'd previously been on paper) and really appreciated being able to do a sign up late at night at home, or to make a last minute change in the morning if they had to.

[T. Graham]

Thanks Jennifer! I'll check out their website.

[Jackie Keith]

We use pbworks and ask teachers to write which block they need (A1, A2 Brown.) We do it with Google calendar, too, for library scheduling (but just TLs have editing rights.)

[Catherine J. Johnson]

Our school uses Novell's Groupwise and we have been using their Extranet Calendar to schedule our computer labs this year. WE had to give out clear instructions to deal with the period timeslots and it is a little more cumbersome than I would like but if you are stuck within the Novel GroupWise system and you don't have Moodle, etc. this could be an option. Teachers request time slots and they have to be approved - only library staff have editing rights to the computer lab calendars. If you go to our library web site (http://access.gale.com/harrisonhs/) and click on "Schedule the Computer Lab" on the right hand menu you should be able to take a look (even though it is on our e-chalk site I think it is open to the web) Let me know if you have any questions.

Catherine Johnson
Harrison High School, LMS

[Colleen McMorran]

We use Google calendar, and you can make the time slots whatever you want. You just have to create an "Event' for each period, each day, and put in the times. Once you've done the first one, you can choose "For All Following" and it will copy to future days.