Google Sites is a collaborative tool that allows teachers and students to create websites, online pages, and portfolios through template customization, dragging and dropping content, and changing the layout to suit their needs. This tool integrates well with Google’s products such as Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Forms into the web-based platform. Google Sites also makes creative content readily showcased and collaborative across multiple groups through embedding and hyperlinking to documents, pictures, videos, and images. All users of this platform can create, communicate and collaborate with peers and then publish content to reach a wide audience. Google Sites is a great tool to use to present information in new and innovative ways. Teachers can use it to get students engaged, and to get students to demonstrate their knowledge in a more creative way. Google Sites is free to use (with a paid option that offers more storage capability).
Google Sites can be used to implement various communication and student-centered instructional strategies. Teachers can host course curriculum, publish content to the web, create a class site, share materials, resources, and course information with students, parents or students guardians.
For student-centered instructional design, Google Sites allows students to be independent and collaborative creators of their own content within the class space – through creating slides, documents, and designing and sharing their own web pages with peers. Teachers can also provide hands-on fun by integrating Google Sites with other platforms such as Google Earth where students can participate in virtual field trips or using Google Forms to create escape rooms and gamified quests/challenges for students.
Teachers can use Google Sites for the following:
Google Sites are used as teacher websites for classrooms for instructional and information purposes and also, for the purpose of sharing and co-creation of teacher resources. When creating sites, there is one caveat teachers need to be aware of. Before publishing their site (i.e. when it is in draft mode), there is a public setting on the draft itself to let anyone on the internet access the unpublished site – teachers should keep this setting off since they will be giving editing privileges to strangers. To collaborate with peers and students on the website, teachers can set privacy settings to anyone with the editing link. Once work is officially published, privacy settings can be set to public or restricted to a selected audience.
Google sites can also be used for student collaborative purposes. Students over the age of 13 can create their own email addresses and work together with peers to create their own web pages and collaborate on work together. Examples include assignments, creative work, student presentation and portfolios and written lab reports. If under the age of 13 and not using the school login credentials, permission is needed from a parent or guardian who will create and share login details with their children.
Once a Google Site is published, there are two different links; a shared “live” final version of the website that exists for web viewers and secondly, an editing version of the website which is a different link where they can collaboratively edit and revise until all changes are finalized. This second version is not “live” or available to anyone other than the editors. As such, once all edits are made, the publish option is chosen from the draft which updates the final version.
Sharing options can be set by logging into Google Sites, selecting the share option and changing the audience. Setting the audience to “anyone on the web” makes the website available to all Internet viewers to view and “specific people” can include a list of email addresses and institutional credentials that give teachers the ability to limit the audience.