Recently I saw a teacher ask online about better font options in Google Sites. Actually I have always appreciated the limited fonts in sites, so students don't get "lost in fontland" looking for the perfect one among hundreds.
However, if you do want to spice up your headings, the video below shows one way to do it.
The short explanation is:
Design your headings using simple, attractive features in Google Slides. For example, Word Art, fill colors and drop shadows can really make your headings pop.
Copy the image from Slides and paste it into your Site. Copying the image from Slides will be different depending on the computer you're using. I put some information below about both those cases.
Snipping an image from the screen using different computers.
Windows Computer - As shown in my video, I recommend the Snipping Tool program.
Mac -you can snip part of the screen by holding shift+command and then pressing 4. That will allow you to draw a box around it as I show in the video. It saves automatically to the desktop of your Mac. Since it saves instead of copying, you need to upload it to your Site instead of just pasting it in, just like you would any other image.
Chromebook - The 6th key from the left in the top row of a Chromebook is needed for this shortcut. It's called the "show all windows" key. So if you press ctrl-shift-"show all windows", it will allow you to capture part of the screen much like what's shown in the video. You'll see a preview of the image appear in the lower right of the screen. Click the option to copy the image.
When schools were closed in Michigan some elementary teachers in my district wanted to keep in touch with students using a website. I made these two short videos to help them get started. They are meant for beginners. Also, please understand they were done quickly and are quite informal.
I'm happy to say they helped teachers create sites who had never made one before. I got some sincere thanks for the effort.
This first one shows how to start a Site and add text, images and links.
This second video shows how to publish the site the first time and how to find the link so others can view it. Note that you have to publish the site again each time you edit it.
This is an updated version of a post I made in 2017. It addresses some changes to the publishing process in Google Sites.
Regular readers and anyone in my training sessions has heard me repeat it. "Show off the learning!"
There are lots of ways to show our best work, but doing it online is certainly one of the easiest. Even if the end product is not digital, it's now very easy to show it off online using Google Sites.
I created a one page document and video tutorial for teachers in my district to give them this easy way to show any product digitally. It makes use of the new Google Sites, which I absolutely love.
Google Sites doesn't have a ton of options, which means students won't lose time finding just the right font and background image.
So imagine students made a physical "something" in class. You could give the students this document of directions and they'd end up with a web page that shows pictures or video along with text, showing off what they made and learned.
Remember that you'll have to supplement those directions with specific things you need to see on their site. For example, you might ask for three or more pictures that show all sides of their project and a detailed description of what it is. I also suggest always requiring a summary of what they learned from the project.
Here is the full video tutorial. The document has links to the relevant sections, so students don't have to watch it all at once.
And here is the single page of steps that you'd give the students. Notice most of the steps link to the exact place in my video tutorial. That way they don't have watch everything if they're stuck on only one part.
Some things to note:
My directions and tutorial only show the how. It directs them to you for the what.
Students would need to take pictures or video of their project, then upload those to Google Drive first. I didn't show that in this tutorial, but it's very easy if they have the Google Drive app at their phones. I consider this to be a survival skill in today's world. I'm working on making a good video to show this process.
Some students forget to do the sharing step (labeled as #1 on my list). If that happens, you won't be able to see their pictures or video when you look at the site.
If your students are restricted to sharing their documents within your G Suite domain, then your site will be restricted as well. In any event, the sharing of the pictures, videos and published site will need to be changed to Anyone with the link if you want it shared beyond your domain.
Step #8 is another common pitfall. Students often will send the link to their side of the website instead of the published version. It is clearly shown in the video, but they need to pay attention.
I didn't address adding multiple pages in my steps, but it is very intuitive to add a new page. This could be great for organizing information about a larger project.
Note that my final step tells them to turn it in through Classroom. If you use a different process, you'll need to modify those directions.
