Configuring your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad’s calendar by selecting Gmail” in the list of available accounts on your device is a simple way to sync Google Calendars to your device. However, that method only sets up Fetch” calendar syncing, which will only update calendar information every 15 minutes or longer. For nearly instantaneous updating, you’ll want to configure your device to enable push Google Calendars. This guide will show you how to do just that.

Note: This guide is written using an iOS4 device, exact directions may vary on the iPad or devices running older firmware. However, this should still work fine if you are running firmware version 3.0 or later.

Configure Your Account

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.
2. Open the Mail, Contacts, Calendars section.
3. Click Add Account….
4. Select Microsoft Exchange.
5. In the Email field, enter the entire email address with which you sign in to Google Calendar (ie: example@gmail.com).
6. Do not enter anything in the Domain field.
7. In the Username field, enter the entire email address with which you sign in to Google Calendar (ie: example@gmail.com).
8. Enter your Gmail accounts password in the Password field.
9. At the top right of the screen, click the Next button.
10. A new Server” field will appear. In the Server field, enter m.google.com
11. At the top right of the screen, click the Next button again.
12. On the following screen, ensure that the Calendar switch is toggled to On, then click Save at the top right of the screen.

Choose Which Calendars to Sync

1. From any web browser, visit https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect and sign in with the Google Account that you use to sign in to Google Calendar.
2. Select the calendars which you’d like to sync to your device, then click the save button.
3. Ensure that your settings have been saved.
4. Launch the Calendar app on your device.
5. At the top right of the screen, tap Calendars.
6. Ensure that the calendars which you would like to view are checked off, then click the Done button at the top right to return to the event view.

Congratulations! You’ve now successfully set up your Google Calendars for push on your iDevice. Now your online Google Calendar and your device’s calendar will be perfectly in sync. If you add, delete, or change events through the online Google Calendar, you’ll see the changes reflected almost immediately on your device, and vice-versa!

How to Sync Push Google Calendar(s) to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

There has been changes and updates to class schedules in nearly every class that I’ve had this semester, and keeping track of it all is quite complicated. Most instructors aren’t about to hand out revised syllabi to a myriad of students — so at best the student gets a shout-out in class that something has been changed, and perhaps the schedule uploaded as a word file somewhere on the web. But regardless of how they try to notify students, schedules get confusing when there are multiple iterations, and if a student is absent that day how are they to know that they schedule has been modified? What’s more, the schedule can only be viewed by downloading a word file and searching through it to find the change.

So here’s a suggestion for instructors. Use a shared Google Calendar to keep your class schedule. What is a shared Google Calendar? In simple terms, it is a free, online calendar that can be viewed by multiple people (ie: all of your students). This has many benefits over the traditional way of doing things (explained above). What are they?

• Push schedule changes to students instantly: The real beauty of a shared Google Calendar is that you can update it whenever you need to, and the change will be seen instantly as students access the calendar. No more arduous altering and uploading of word documents. The calendar, of course, would be set to read-only so that only the instructor can make changes.
• Multi-platform: A word document is… a word document, and can only be read on a device that supports whatever format you choose. A Google calendar can be access in a vast number of ways. Students could access the calendar from a simple website URL. They could subscribe to the calendar with their own favorite calendar application. Students can even see changes to the calendar through RSS. If your students are really savvy, they’ll easily be able to get the calendar onto their phone or a device like the iPod Touch, and it will function as a handy pocket schedule for their class. The great thing about this is that if done properly, they’ll get instant schedule updates directly to their device if the professor makes a change to the master calendar (ah… the beauty of technology).
• Save the environment: Instead of printing hundreds of papers at the beginning of a semester (and maybe even again in order to update the schedule) just write the URL of the calendar on the board at the beginning of the semester. From this one URL, students can view the calendar, and advanced students can access the calendar from wherever they want (RSS, through a mobile device, etc.) A tip about the URL: Writing a long shared calendar URL can be annoying for you and for your students who need to copy it down. Try using a service like www.tinyurl.com which will shorten the URL to just a few characters and make it easier for everyone to copy down the address.

So consider using a more efficient, practical, and environmentally friendly approach to class schedules next semester. Not only will this make things easier on the instructor’s end, but students stand to benefit as well. Have a quick look at how easy it is to work with a Google calendar, and how students see the updates immediately:

Students: feel free to point your instructors in the direction of this article if you think that it’d be useful to you or them, maybe they’ll be willing to give it a try for their next semester of classes!

Professors and Teachers — Use Free Tools to Help the Environment and Keep Your Class on Schedule with Ease is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.