Digital Resources: Google Sites

Designing a website can be time-consuming and cumbersome, but sometimes you need the flexibility that websites can offer. Google Sites is an ideal option for teachers and students who need that flexibility but don't have sophisticated design or layout requirements. Google Sites is fairly bare bones in terms of customization. There are about 20 themes to choose from, and they are more functional than beautiful. Where Google Sites really shines is in it's ability to act as a landing site for your students to access your other (Google-created) products. 

As a classroom teacher, my Google Site had my classroom calendar on the main page, but since that was posted in a lot of places I don't think that was where students first went to get the information that calendar contained (i.e. homework, special events, etc.) It was the other pages on the site that were more heavily trafficked - primarily the two Google Forms I used as part of classroom activities. One was a "store" where students "purchased" products they had designed for an advertising project. Students logged into my site every day for a week to "spend their paychecks" that they had earned as a part of the project. The other form was a writing goal tracker I had developed. Students logged into this each time I returned a paper to them so they could track their progress towards their personal writing goals. My site was simply the best delivery method for these digital tools (since this was before the time when Google Forms could be directly shared through Google Classroom). Now that Google Classroom is more sophisticated, my Google Site may only exist as a repository for student work/discussions.

The home page for my Google site

As a librarian, my website is populated differently. My front page still has my calendar, but since that calendar does not exist anywhere else it is used much more frequently by my colleagues. I also have links to the databases our library subscribes to, a Research Portal (developed in collaboration with the high school English department, which gives a quick overview of plagiarism and citation, along with links to resources), a page with the Google Form my students use to sign into the library when they come from study hall, along with a few external links (my blog and Accelerated Reader resources). Part of the reason my site is populated in this way is because I have a button on the myfav.es portal our IT department set up. I have an easy way to direct my students and colleagues to my site (since I don't pay for a domain name), so I know it will be used frequently.

The draw of Google Sites isn't its attractiveness or its sophistication. It's in the ease of use and design, and the simplicity with which you can share content created in other Google platforms. This makes it excellent for student projects, discussion boards, link/file sharing and other basic classroom needs. The more Google-centric your files are, the easier and clearer it is to share them. Getting started is easy thanks to the variety of templates provided, and if you know some html basics you can troubleshoot formatting problems you may run into (after very little time working through Code Academy's webpage building course I was able to figure out why my fonts weren't matching up and correct it). 

Where: sites.google.com

Cost: Free

What: Website builder

Students! Try Google Sites if you want to...

create a website for a project or club

have a landing site for your personal content (especially Google content)

Teachers! Try Google Sites if you want to...

create a classroom webpage to share content or host class discussions

have students create web pages