Thanks to everyone who offered advice and shared their examples. Though it is
somewhat limiting in terms of design I've decided to go with Google sites to create
my website.
Original post:
I am working on creating a website for my high school library and I wascurious if
anyone has used Google sites, either for professional or personalreasons. What's
good, what's bad. Any opinions on if this is a good idea ornot.
Heidi Kirchmeyer
Librarian
Bisbee High School
Bisbee, AZ
deekaye31@hotmail.com
Comments:
I have used Google sites for personal and professional use. They are very simple
to use. For me, it is nothing more than a links site. Here is the site I put
together for the teachers at my school as a summer resource.
http://nowlinresources.googlepages.com/
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We've switched entirely to Google for email, etc. We are still trying towork on the
sites part of it for our school. It takes a bit of work and Ijust haven't had time
yet this summer, but you certainly can't beat free. Iknow there is a ton of help
available.
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I started using Google this year - at the suggestion of our tech person. Itis easy
to use, changes can be made very quickly, and I can work on it fromanywhere. I have
some teachers who have started to create their own sitesthat are linked from the
media center's site, some of them had been createdin other formats but they still
link without problem. Our page was added tothe district's main page as a link.
http://www.spring-lake.k12.mi.us/Google seems to be a great solution when you don't
have the time to dosomething much more
complicated.http://springlakemediacenters.googlepages.com/
___________________________________________________________________________________________
I use googlepages for my website. It works well, but you don't have total control
like you would with an html editor. Much of the program is canned. Your home page
needs to use googlepages' design layout. You can use a blank layout for your other
pages. I haven't done this because Google makes updating so simple that I put up
with the inconvenient layout. If you want to see my site it's at
cynthia.lutz.googlepages.com
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Sorry I don't have information about Google for you. I'm fortunate that my school
has its own server and I save my webpage to that rather than having to rely on an
outside service provider. I will say that I rely on Google for lots of things and
would certainly recommend most things I've used with them. The most important thing
to remember with library webpages is not which service you use (Years ago I used
Homework.com and ftp'd everything to them. Nowadays I don't think you even have to
do that set up a site.) but what you are putting on the site. Other options I've
seen people use are wikis and blogs as library home pages. Whatever the medium the
page should be the front door to your virtual library. Joyce Valenza has some great
tips on setting up school library webpages.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
We have been using google co-op custom search engines with our 7th and8th grade
projects for two or three years and we've been very happy withthe results. Our
content area teachers like them so much that some ofthe teams actually build their
own custom search engines and ask us toplace it on the library's "research help"
page.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
are you talking about google site creator? I have used this with grade 7's and it's
great - super user-friendly. It's very limiting creativity-wise, however, if you're
used to working with Dreamweaver or other web creating software. But that's what
made it so appealing for my "introduction to web creation" class- it's hard to make
it look bad!
It's also very handy to have it launched on the web without using another platform.
The only thing that's not so great is that the pages can't be searched using the
google search engine, which I find super strange. I've been googling my site for
about eight months and can't find it (the googlebots haven't found it yet, perhaps?
Strange). The kids also find it a bit depleting when they can't google their sites.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I have a good University friend who built and impressive SmartboardNotebook web
page using Google pages for his web page. Check it out
athttp://almarolh.googlepages.com/
_________________________________________________________________
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