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You Can Learn to Make a Google Site (It’s Easy!)
Ready to learn how to create your own Google Sites? You can read this post or watch 10 short videos. It’s great professional development!
Using these apps in my classroom made me enjoy teaching even more.
1. Teachers Use Google Sites to Direct Student Learning
Now you can curate materials from the Internet! Just organize text, images, and videos in a Google Site. Kids are in the driver’s seat – but you’re directing learning. For example, this Apollo 11 website lets kids click through content to learn about the mission.
2. Teachers Use Google Sites to Supplement Instruction
To reinforce learning, build a supplemental website. Audio and video content make science and social studies content come to life. This Great Lakes website, for example, supports an entire unit of study.
3. You Can Promote Independent Learning with Google Sites
If you give kids direction, they can work autonomously. Put it all in a Site. Watch them go!
4. Teachers Can Design Webquests with Google Sites
Try a webquest. Give your kids a task. And provide links to safe resources. They’ll have a blast.
In this Cinderella webquest, for example, students are asked to write a parody. Each task scaffolds kids toward their goal. They learn about elements of a story, read and compare Cinderella folklore from around the world, explore a parody, and learn key strategies to plan and improve their writing.
5. They Can Make PBLs Too
Problem-based or project-based learning work well with Google Sites too. Everything’s housed in one handy spot. In this Hatchet PBL, for instance, kids read the novel and gather information from the text. Then, using images, maps, and other media, they determine Brian’s location.
6. Teachers Use Google Sites to Organize Research Projects
With Google Sites, you can provide research project directions – and give examples. With this extra guidance, research papers improve. For example, in this animal research project, kids can look at directions and exemplars time and time again.
7. Collaborative Websites Let Students Work Together
Think digital jigsaw. This works great for a topic with many parts. First, create a website. Make a page for each child. Then assign topics and set them loose. When it’s finished, you’ll have a complete, collaborative website that covers the entire topic.
I created this Site for my students to learn about diseases. Each child worked on his or her own page to write a blog on a specific illness.
8. Teachers Use Google Sites to Direct Homework
A homework website allows you to update often and provide links. You can also create a website for a difficult concept – and have parents help at home.
For example, this Site on multiplication facts provides parents and students methods for learning fact groups, links to timed tests, and printable pages.
9. You Can Also Make an Ebook
Teachers or students can do this. Place a different story on each page – and there you have it: an eBook. The image below shows an ebook featuring characters from Greek myths. On each page, students can read a one-page passage.
If you’re asking students to read multiple passages, an ebook provides a great paperless solution. When your students each create a different product, an ebook provides a great way to present them.
10. Want to Flip Your Classroom? Use Google Sites.
For a flipped classroom, just link information in a website. Share it so kids can learn at home. Then work on engaging activities during class time. Here, for example, I created a simple Google Site that helped my students prepare to write an opinion paragraph.
11. Teachers Use Google Sites to Modernize Novel Studies
Instead of the old packet, create a multi-media novel study. When you add images, video, and audio, kids make better connections to the novel.
This Little House in the Big Woods website, for example, allowed me to include a pictorial dictionary. That really helped my kids understand vocabulary related to pioneer times.
12. You Can Organize Your Teaching Life with Sites
Sites have the power to organize all your teaching stuff. You can embed Google Apps – like this seating chart – in your website. That way, everything is stored in one place. Additionally, when you edit the App, changes automatically show up on the Google Site.
13. They Give You a Great Way to Store Unit Plans
With Google Sites, you can organize your units logically. Linking allows you to manage printable and paperless text options, as well as audio and video resources.
This fables website lets me click through my unit with ease.
14. And Organize Your Google Drive
When you Drive, use Google Sites as your dashboard. For example, I find it easier to locate and assign my digital daily language with this website.
15. Teachers Organize Curriculum with Linked Sites
Related units – or even entire subject areas – can be linked using Google Sites. Just make a website and link it to all of the related parts.
This website is really just a shell. The images link to units in my literature curriculum. Try creating a branching website like this to better organize your Google Sites.
16. Teachers Store Lesson Plans in Google Sites
First, make a digital lesson plan template using Google Slides. Next, add your plans. Link them to the digital unit plans. Finally, embed the lesson plans into a Site. You’re on your way to creating a digital teacher dashboard.
17. Teachers Use Google Sites to Manage Long-Range Plans
Use Google Slides to make a planning grid for each quarter. Insert colored rectangles over the grid. Type unit names on the rectangles and move around to plan. When you’re finished, embed quarterly plans into your teacher dashboard.
18. You Can Make Interactive Seating Charts with Google Slides
Using the same process, create a seating chart with Google Slides. Embed it into your Site. Whenever you want to change seats, edit your Slide. Changes magically appear in your Site!
19. Teachers Use Google Sites to Create the Ultimate Teacher Dashboard
First, embed lesson plans, long-range plans, and seating chart in one site. Add your schedule and other important links. That’s it! You’ve created the ultimate teacher dashboard.
20. Sub Plans Are Ready to Go with Google Sites
For the perfect emergency plans, prepare for your sub with Google Sites. You can store everything in one handy place – and students can guide their own learning.
With this frogs website lets kids work independently to explore informational text, language, listening, literature, math, and science. As a bonus, they also do a camouflage project.
These sites are perfect for sub plans – in the classroom, hybrid, or remote!
Teaching with Google Sites
Sure, it takes some doing. However, teaching with Google Sites has the power to revolutionize your teacher life. Try making one today!