Part 1: The Sanity Saver
Part 2: The Classroom Website For the Super Busy Teacher (you are here)
Part 3: The Well-Oiled Classroom Machine
Special: The Student Edition
As I talked about last week (Back to School for the High School Teacher Part 1: The Sanity Saver), I've spent a great deal of my summer hunting for ideas to make the school year go more smoothly. Today's topic is one I had thought about doing for a while but I had never quite pulled it together. One of the classes I took in high school taught me how to use Adobe DreamWeaver to create web pages, and it was something I absolutely loved. I've always loved the idea of having a classroom website but I didn't really know the best way to go about doing this.
This year I stumbled upon Google Sites. I love Google anyway, but Google Sites is a pretty amazing tool for someone who wants to do the classroom website thing but doesn't have a ton of time or money on their hands - and if you're a teacher, you know that we don't have either of those. :)
Using Google Sites, I've created a very simple template for a classroom website that can by used by the most inexperienced website creators, and I would like to share that with you today.
First, here is a link to the website that shows the template. Feel free to explore!
https://sites.google.com/site/classsitebyeatwriteteach/
If you like what you see, here is the step-by-step procedure for making your own Google Site.
*Before you begin, you need an account with Google. This is free, quick, and simple! Make sure you do this at www.google.com.*
Step 1: Go to www.sites.google.com.
Step 2: Click on the red CREATE button (see picture below).
Step 3: A page will come up asking you to choose a template for your site. Click the "Browse the gallery for more" link.
Step 4: In the Search box, type eatwriteteach. As of this posting, the only site template that will pop up is the one I created that you previewed earlier. It should say "Class Site by EatWriteTeach." Click that template. It will let you preview. You can scroll down to choose the template.
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By the way, I changed the color scheme since I created this tutorial. It's purple and gold now. You can change it to whatever you want! :) |
Step 5: After you choose the template, make sure you name your site and then scroll down to type in the little letter code to let Google know you aren't a robot. Then click CREATE.
Congratulations! You have just created your classroom website! You can learn lots of things about the customization of your website by just playing around, but here are a few helpful hints.
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Click the pencil to edit elements of the current page. Don't forget to save! |
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Click the page with the plus sign to add a new page to your website. |
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The More dropdown is useful. In particular, you will likely use Page Settings and Preview Page as Viewer to get started. |
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Changing the title of the tabs is easy! Just changed the title of the page. |
Hopefully this will help you along your merry way to creating a classroom website. As you decide to become a more advanced site creator, use Google search to help you figure out just what you want to do! Your students, parents, and administrators will thank you for it. :)
Tune in Tuesday, August 7th for Back to School for the High School Teacher Part 3: The Well-Oiled Classroom Machine.
Happy Teaching!