A journey through tools and approaches

For the past 2 weeks I have been endlessly researching many tools and approaches that came up from the interviews done at the beginning of this process. I have screengrabbed many bits of useful information that demonstrate the tools homepage and key interaction. Below I describe a few highlights and limitations of tools that have been used for online teaching.

Deep Dive Calendly

Calendly is a simple, easy-to-use, yet powerful scheduling software, which aims to save time, accelerate sales, and improve service quality. It eliminates the old-school way of using email and phone tags for scheduling appointments, calls, interviews, demos, and more. It allows hot prospects to connect right away, and ensures staff doesn’t lose them to phone and email tags.

It works simply and beautifully: all you need to do is to set your availability preference, share the link with clients, colleagues, etc. and let them pick a time for the event, which is automatically added to your calendar. It’s more efficient and simplified compared to traditional appoint scheduling solutions, and it makes it easy for users to setup, use, and manage scheduling of appointments and more.

Calendly can be integrated with Google, Office 365 and Outlook, and checks all calendars for conflicts to avoid double-booking. It also adds new events to the calendars automatically. Its simple, easy-to-use, and modern interface ensures a smooth experience and makes the software a pleasure to use. Custom reminders and confirmations can automatically be sent to invitees to ensure maximum retention.

It’s also fully optimized for desktops, phones and tablets, ensuring invitees have no compatibility issues while running the software on their devices. The software allows prevention of last-minute meetings, setting buffer times between meetings and secret event types for enhanced privacy and control. Team’s availability is shown on a single page for maximum convenience.

Users can set their capacity and allow multiple invitees to schedule the same slot, which is particularly useful for webinars, tours, workshops and classes. Invitees are also able to quickly add meetings to their own calendars without signing up or registering. Premium subscribers also get fast email support during business hours.

The software differentiates itself from other solutions through its very simple and elegant user interface. It can also be embedded directly into your website, allowing customers to schedule right from there. Its integration with Zapier, which already supports more than 500 apps, allows triggering actions in other apps after an event is scheduled or canceled.

Overview of Calendly Features

• Open API
• Simple, elegant and modern interface
• Calendar integration
• Fully optimized for all devices
• Automatic/custom notifications
• Enhanced privacy and controls
• Team scheduling
• Group events
• Invitee calendar integration
• Can be embedded with websites
• Metrics and reporting
• APIs and Webhooks

Deep Dive Basecamp

Basecamp is one of the best-known project management platforms in the world. Its goal is to help the companies and teams which rely on it to achieve higher levels of productivity through better communication and organization.

Basecamp is intended to be an all-in-one project management system that gives you access to the same features you’d normally have to sign up to multiple services to get. This tool comes with file storage, document editing, realtime chat, and advanced to-do list features to replace those offered by standalone platforms like Google Drive, Slack, and Asana.

One of the central Basecamp features is a team member chatroom known as Campfire. Here, users involved in a particular project can shoot messages to one another, attaching emojis or files if they need to.

The worst thing about working with different programs that aren’t talking to each other is that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by a huge number of unrelated notifications that drag you away from the task at hand. Basecamp handles Campfire and project notifications much better, with the ability to switch off all notifications at set times.

Deep Dive Minecraft

Minecraft is a sandbox game that can be adapted to fit nearly any objective or subject, with lessons lasting as short as one period or the entire year. Players collect and combine resources into new, useful items that enrich gameplay and help further exploration and creativity. Although it has an “End” zone for players who want to fight the game’s boss (a dragon), Minecraft has no plot — the story is up to the player to define. Depending on what players choose to build, they’ll task themselves with collecting specific resources necessary to craft items that can help them build cooler and/or more useful things, or explore. Each completed project inevitably leads to a new one with new resource and item needs, sending the player deeper into the world. Selecting Creative Mode, as opposed to the default Survival Mode, removes the need to collect resources, the monsters, and health and hunger meters, allowing players to build easily and in peace. Creative Mode is probably best for younger students who might get too distracted by monsters or lessons requiring complex builds in a short amount of time. Other modes include Adventure, Hardcore, and Spectator.

The game empowers students to experiment and make mistakes through trial and error. Teachers should be aware, however, that the game’s emphasis on open creation, collaboration, and communication also means that students playing together can get into conflicts or get distracted and off task. If framed less as problems and more as opportunities, these issues can be made into powerful learning experiences that guide students toward successful and respectful collaboration.

Minecraft is super flexible, so just about any classroom can find a way to make it work for the content. It’s engrossing, and students are likely to work long hours on projects both at home and at school, so be wary of time management as well as issues — such as “griefing” — that may arise from at-home and potentially unsupervised use. While playing in class, teachers can help students negotiate norms, roles, and responsibilities and foster trust and a sense of consequence for individuals’ actions within a community.

Students can use Minecraft as a portfolio, creating structures and systems that model topics or concepts covered in class. In a math classroom, students can tackle problems using a set number of blocks (the basic unit of Minecraft) or calculate area and volume. For writing practice, students can keep explorers’ journals or compare and contrast the biomes and geologies of their Minecraft worlds with those of their home states. Teachers who are looking for a more structured experience for students can try