Sites...

GOOGLE Sites

  Is this really our LAST assignment?!?  This class has taught me so much, thank you Dr. Krug for teaching us :)

  Our last assignment was in Google Sites.  I have not had much experience in making websites, except through iWeb (which not longer exists).  I really liked the iWeb format, cause it already had everything formatted for me, and I just had to fill in what I wanted.  But, for me, learning how to do Google Sites, has been really good.  There were a few bumps, but nothing that AtomicLearning couldn't help me fix.  If you want to visit my Site, please go to: Ms. Johnson's Class.

  I decided that the theme of my Site would be for my pretend 2nd grade class.  I used pictures of my old English classes from Japan, and made up several fake pages.  

  To begin, I watched several of the AtomicLearning videos, and especially glancing through Mrs. Ardinger's Class Site.  Both of these sites helped me tremendously.  

  I started out by choosing the background and layout that I wanted.  I did try different formats, but stuck with the Horizontal look.  I liked the glitter background, because it fit my mood at the time :)  I decided I wanted to make the first thing you see on the Home screen, to be our class having fun.  I then added a page about myself, a page for our class schedule (including Specials), our class blog, our location, and a calendar.  Then, I wanted to have a  "Parent Resource" tab.  Under this tab, I put my contact information in a table format, along with a list of sites the parents can go to if they need homework help, and added a site for them to see the CCSS.  

  Now, here is how did in each of these:

• Home Page: I made this page as a welcoming page, and added a fun picture of my 'class'.  This was an easy task to do, after I watched a video.  I tried to add a newsreel at the bottom, but I have yet to see any news come up.
• About Your Teacher: I made changes to this page, several times.  I found that you could warp the text around the picture you inserted, and then I wanted to make it more personal, by adding my favorite things.  
• Class Blog: I used the "Announcement" tab for this, because they said that it was more for blog posts.  I would like to add a sheet that I made for my first lesson plan, but I did not buy the pictures, so I chose not to do that.  But, if I used this is real life, I would like for the parents to see what their child is doing with homework.
• Location and Calendar:  I found this a bit hard.  All of my calendars had personal information, so I used a Japanese calendar.  It was clear of personal information, but had some Japanese holidays.  I'm not sure how to get a clean calendar on there.  I also chose to use the JU address as our school address.  This is where I had problems moving tabs, because I would have preferred it be at the bottom of this list, but every time I tried to move them around it just got worse.
• Our Class Schedule:  I would have preferred this be up higher.  I used a regular page, but clicked into the layout and made it into two columns.
• Parent Resource Tab:  I wanted a tab that just my parents could click on and this did the job.  To do this, I made sure I put that page under the top heading, not 'Home'.
• CCSS: I used the Lists tab to make this list.  You can make your own, so I used a URL to add this to a list of websites (I just used one, but you can put several).
• Contact Info: I used a chart to list my fake contact info.  It was very easy, and I could move it around to fit the size I wanted.
• Parent Resources:  I used the List tab, again for this.  I wanted to add an area of URL's that parents could go to for homework help.
• On my sidebars, I really wanted something important and fun.  I chose to put a text of what we will be studying that week, along with a countdown to the start of school.  I really liked both of these features.  

 Working with the Calendar widget was easy, except that I could not figure out how to have a clean (American) calendar.  Working with the Maps widget was good, cause you set your location for anywhere.  The News Element widget has not worked, but I wanted to try it, so I kept it on my site.  

  I had a page for Class Projects, and I struggled with making it look more fluid.  I added two text boxes, but they just did not look like what I thought they would.  These were my biggest issues.

  I will say, that for this being a free service, there are so many things you can do.  But, the look is still a bit stale for me.  I really like the templates that iWeb had, because they were so neat and professional looking.  I'm sure there are more things that can be done in this program, too, but for this assignment, I will not dig to deep.  I really enjoyed the simplicity of the videos to help get me through this project, and I had a good time learning who to set my site up.