Teacher Admin

Surprisingly to some, teachers have lives outside of teaching. Working as a teacher requires excellent time management skills. In order for me to be successful and productive in my daily life, I need a calendar. The calendar allows my family and I to manage our time and know where to be at all times. I have a family calendar posted in our kitchen. I would be lost if I didn't have a daily calendar in my life,

As you can see above, I color coded each family member with appointments and events that were going to take place for the month. I realized that no one was looking at the calendar and still asking me about appointments, game events and work. I also noticed that I was the only one writing on the calendar, which meant not all events or appointments were being written on the calendar. This was creating conflict with prior scheduled events. I needed to come up with a better solution to fix the problem.

I went on-line and googled calendars that I could download to my iPhone that I would be able to share with my family members. Many different calendar choices appeared. I came across this free calendar application called COZI Family Organizer. I downloaded the application to my iPhone and got started.

Above you will notice I was able to enter events, appointments and activities into the calendar. The reason why I decided to convert to a digital organizer was so that I could add alerts to the schedule and events on the go. I was able to add alerts/notifications anywhere from 5 minutes prior to 2 weeks prior to the event for all my family members or individual family members. The alerts helped with reminders but we weren’t happy that we couldn’t see the entire month's calendar in front of us when viewing. When I looked further into the application I realized that it would cost a fee to upgrade in order to view the month’s calendar. There had to be other applications that would provide what my family and I needed to help us to be more productive. I decided to look into other iPhone calendar applications.

I came across another free on-line application called FamCal: Shared Family. I decided to download the

application to my iPhone with the hopes that it would provide my family and I with the wants and needs to be organized and productive. I was able to enter all my appointments and events to the calendar. All my family members are synced and able to add events to the calendar as well. I am able to color code each family member with the associated activity. It also allowed us to view the entire month.

This is exactly what I wanted that would be useful for me and my family. We are able to view the entire months calendar in front of us. We can quickly see availability when entering an event or appointment into our shared calendar. We are also able to see more than one event listed per day. This allows us to see availability quickly and eliminate booking appointments and events on the same day.


This app also features other helpful tools such as memos, to-do-list, shopping list and you could also link your phone contacts to this application. With my busy schedule and limited time, I need to make a list of what I need when I go food shopping instead of going through each isle. The shopping list allows everyone in the family to view and add to it. It also puts your list in alphabetical order which is helpful and easy to navigate through.

Another helpful feature I learned how to use is the To-Do-List. Having a list allows me to stay organized and more manageable when I’m able to sit down and make a plan ahead of time. It also allows me to prioritize my day in the order of importance. When I have accomplished a task from my list it makes me feel productive.

The only problem with this To-Do-List is that it’s shared with the entire family. I have contacted the application site and they are looking into making the To-Do-List private. If you have any questions or concerns about this application you can email fam.cal.a@appxy.com .


Digital calendars are at the tip of your fingers. Calendars are important, essential and used by all people in different fields and in different ways. The FamCal has helped me and my family to be more productive and stay on schedule and routine with daily activities and events. Digital calendars allows families to share information and stay informed with open communication through the use of technology. Since I have used this application my family and I have not had any issues of double booking appointments or missed any appointments. We all know where everyone is located at all times. Not only are you able to share a calendar, but we can share tasks, memo’s, to-do-lists and shopping lists. The shopping list option is a bonus for my family. Anytime we run out of a type of food it’s added to the shopping list and purchased at our next visit. This application goes beyond the calendar for families and individuals to stay organized, connected and informed.