Okay, well, NEED may be a strong word, but you’ll probably save a ton of time and feel super accomplished if you have your own teacher Google Site! First off – you don’t need to be a Google district to use a Google Site! Think of your site as just a standalone website, just like my website that you’re reading this blog post on! Your site can serve as a central hub for ALL things related to you and your teaching. You can link your site on your learning management platform, at the footer of your email, in Dojo, on class social media pages… really anywhere! Here are three reasons why you need a Google Site!
Reason #1: You’ll become an organizational master!
You can easily build pages on your website that are designated spaces to hold different information for both students AND parents! Some of the pages I recommend using are: Parent Portal, Student Portal, Logins and Links, Assignments, and Contact the Teacher. In your parent and student portals, link useful sites and information that your parents and students refer to daily. For example, if you’re using my Daily Check-In Form or my Digital Reading Log, those are great things to link in your student portal! Students can find them easily and complete them as often as you need them to. Under your Logins and Links page, include links to all the websites you use frequently, so that they’re all bookmarked in one spot for students and parents!
Reason #2: You can use it year after year
Chances are, you’ll be using a lot of the same information year after year, despite having different classes. Your Google Site isn’t going anywhere, and it’s super easy to just update as you go! You can reuse your information saving you tons of time! It’s also very easy to “hide” certain pages if you don’t need to use them anymore but don’t necessarily want to delete all the information on them.
Reason #3: They’re easy to use
Not the most tech-savvy teacher? That’s okay! Google Sites are WAY more basic than regular websites. You can literally drag and drop text boxes and spaces to add images, and even embed other files very easily using the template builder. Another teacher said this about her not-so-tech savvy coworkers using my Google Site Designed For Me resource:
If you haven’t gotten started creating a Google Site yet, you can expect to become slightly obsessed as you are beginning! It’s very addicting and you’ll want to build it all in one sitting if you’re anything like me! It took me about 10 minutes to really get the hang of it, and after that, I was building pages like a PRO. If you’d like to get a head start, you can build a site off of the Google Site template I designed, Google Site: Designed For Me. It includes tutorial videos on every single page that walk you through the setup and design process. It even comes with cute buttons and banners that you can customize!
✨ HAPPY DESIGNING! ✨
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