Google Sites

This post is in regard to Google Sites. Google Sites is an excellent web editor. It allows anyone to easily create and publish a web site.

This tool is an excellent choice for educators for several reasons.

1. Integration with other Google tools
As you can probably tell from my previous posts - I enjoy using Google products a lot. They offer a great product at a great price (free) and make it easy to use in the classroom. Google Sites integrates well with other Google services. In sites it is trivial to insert a Google Doc, YouTube video, Calendar, Picasaweb slideshow, or form with the click of a button. No embed code or HTML - just point and click.

2. Easy Editing
Google Sites is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. This means that you do not have to know any code to create a page. It is as easy as typing a document. The structure is easily changed to different layouts and themes.

3. Collaboration
In a style similar to Google Docs, pages in Sites can be collaborative. This means that multiple users can edit the same page. An excellent use for this would be department pages. Each teacher would have their own page - editable only by them. There would also be a department pages (i.e. Science, English, etc.) where all members of the department could make changes.

4. Instant Changes
The moment you hit "Save" on the Google Sites page, your changes will appear online. This is similar to many other Content Management Systems. However, if you have ever used something such as Dreamweaver or Kompozer*, you will know that it can be a pain to set up and continually update and upload your files.

5. Edit Anywhere
This is also another benefit to using Sites as opposed to Dreamweaver or Kompozer*. Anywhere you can access the Web, you can edit your site. No software to install, no (S)FTP servers to set up. It all just works.

If you have a question about Google Sites or would like me to go into more detail on a particular section, please leave a question in the comments or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

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*I do not mean to belittle these programs. Dreamweaver and Kompozer are quite excellent Web site editors. They can both do things that Google Sites cannot. However, I think Google Sites is much more usable and easy - especially to new users with little or no experience in web design.