Google Sites is now available for anyone who has a Google account. Prior to yesterday’s announcement, Google Sites was only available to businesses and organizations that have their own registered domain. Google Sites is a simple website building tool that anyone can use for free. Building a page or pages with Google Sites does not require any knowledge of coding or programming. The Google Sites editor has a simple and intuitive interface that anyone familiar with a computer will be able to use. If your students can change their Myspace themes, they have more than enough knowledge to use Google Sites.

Applications for Education
Google Sites will be a great tool for teachers to use in a number of ways. Starting a webpage on Google Sites takes only a few minutes which makes it appealing for use in the classroom as it does not require teachers to spend a lot time teaching the technical aspects before moving on to academic use. Students can build pages individually or collaboratively. A great student use of Google Sites would be to create and build webpages about a particular subject or topic.

For teachers, building a website for your class(es) is an easy way to communicate and share information with parents. You could post assignments and assignment dates, study guides, links to useful information, and digital copies of commonly used forms like permission slips or reading logs.

Below is the Google Sites introductory video.