The students who are now in our classrooms are digital
citizens through and through, having grown up with computers and the Internet
at their fingertips. Teachers are asking
them to become more than digital consumers.
Students are now being given the opportunity to become digital creators,
which activate and strengthen many important skills. One tool that teachers can use to not only
improve classroom communication, but to also allow students to be digital creators
is the new Google Sites.
The new Google Sites is a vast improvement over what is now
called Classic Google Sites. The new
Google Sites offers trendy modern aesthetics, increased ease of use, and
adaptability to PCs and mobile devices.
It provides many other cool features that you can explore once you get
into it. Since many schools use G Suite
for Education, the new Google Sites is a perfect tool to integrate into a
classroom as it works seamlessly with all the other G Suite apps. Teachers can use it to give their students,
families, and coworkers a look inside their classrooms. Students can use it for a variety of projects
for different subjects. I’m going to
give you a tour of the new Google sites below.
You get to Google Sites in Google Drive, and all the Sites
you create will be in your Drive. Just
right-click in Drive, and you’ll see the following menu.
At the top of Google Sites, you’ll see a place to name your
site as well as buttons for undo, redo, preview, link, share, options, and publish.
You can also add a logo that will appear as a small image in
the upper left corner of your Site. You
even have the option of using the color from the logo as a color theme for your
Site.
You have three options for the size of the banner: large banner, banner, and title only. The “title only” is the smallest of the
banner, making the content of your website appear farther to the top of the
page.
You can change the background image of the banner to one of
your own images, or you can choose one from Google’s gallery of images.
Double-click anywhere in the blank area of your site to make
the insert menu appear, where you can insert a text box, image, or file from
Drive. You can also use the menu on the
right side of the screen to get insert options.
If you want to add a footer to your website, you can do that from the
insert menu as well.
The menu of insert options on the right side of the screen
provides more features, such as inserting a divider, YouTube video, Google
Calendar, Google Map, or something from Google Drive. You can also easily move these items around
your page and resize them to fit your layout.
The Pages tab is where you’ll go to create, name, and
organize pages and subpages on your Site.
You can style your Site with any of the available themes
under the Themes tab. If you know the
hex color code for a particular color, you can configure that too.
Click the gear near the top of the page to choose between
top navigation or side navigation. You
can click the eye icon near the top of the page to preview your Site and how it
would look on a PC, tablet, and smartphone.
Finally, you can publish your Site by clicking the Publish
button at the top of the page. Here, you’ll
get access to publishing settings and the ability to unpublish it if you want
to take it offline.
For more information about using Google Sites, check out this video tutorial.
