Google Calendar

Google Calendar can be a great productivity tool for personal and professional use. Families can keep track of all the doctor's appointments, ball games, dance recitals, family reunions, birthdays, and more from mobile devices and on the Web. Whose turn is it pick-up from daycare? At work, set up the desk schedules, staff meeting dates, meeting room reservations, and other calendar needs. We know teachers with Google calendars embedded on their wikis, blogs, or Web pages that list all assignments that are linked to the assignment details. Limits the "I didn't know" excuse. 

The calendar owner has control over the settings and access. You can share with the world (it will show up in Google search results) or invite individuals via email to share. You give each participant a level of sharing--view only levels, view and manage, make changes, etc. You can have multiple calendars each with different access levels. You can receive reminders via text or email. You can sync you calendar with Outlook, Blackberry devices, and Apple's iCal. You can Tweet

your calendar. You can put it as a gadget on your iGoogle page or blog. You can even print calendar.

Calendar Features (from Google) 

Calendar Sharing: Set up a calendar for your company softball team, and share it with the whole roster. (Your shortstop will never forget about practice again.) Or share with friends and family so you can view each other's schedules side by side.

Invitations: Create event invitations, send them to friends, and keep track of people's responses and comments, all in one place. Your friends can receive your invitation and post responses even if they don't use Google Calendar themselves.

Quick Add: Click anywhere on your calendar where an event belongs (or use the Quick Add link), and start typing. Google Calendar understands whole phrases like "Brunch with mom at Java Cafe 11am on Saturday," and will pop new events right into your agenda.

Gmail Integration: Add your friend's Super Bowl party to your calendar without ever leaving your Gmail inbox. Gmail now recognizes events mentioned in emails.

Search: Find the date of the Baxter family BBQ (you knew it was sometime this summer). Or, search public calendars to discover new events you're interested in and add them to your own calendar.

Mobile Access: Receive event reminders and notifications on your mobile phone.

Event Publishing: Share your organization's events with the world. Learn more with our Event Publisher Guide. 

If you need more/different features, Mashable has a list of 40+ Tools for Google Calendar.

Take the Google Calendar tour or watch this video (7minutes) for more info on setting up and using a calendar (there's music!) 

Activities 

• Read this article from Virtual Hosting.com: 50 Tips, Tweaks and Hacks to Make the Most of Google Calendar or Rock Your Google Calendar 18 Ways from Web Worker Daily.
• Determine a use for a Google Calendar and set one up.
• Embed the calendar on you iGoogle page or in your blog.
• Blog about your experience and ideas for using the calendar.

Like Google Calendar

• Kiko is a similar Web-based calendar.
• 30 Boxes is another calendar.
• Yahoo! Calendar
• Give Fusecal the address of a site you check for events and it will create an automatically updating FuseCal calendar for that site. Or Create a Blank Calendar and enter events yourself.