Over the last two weeks I’ve had five occasions to work with teachers to either develop new websites or improve existing websites in Google Sites. Over the course of these workshops I’ve found that there are five ways that Google Sites are commonly being used in schools.

Before you jump to the list, the shameless promotion department at Free Technology for Teachers would like to mention that you should see Google Sites for Teachers if you need help getting started using Google Sites.

5 Ways to Use Google Sites in Schools
1. As a wiki: Google Sites can be used as a wiki if you share
your site with others and invite them to be editors. As a teacher you
could start a site then add your students as owners or editors on the
site. If you add them as owners they will be able to start new pages. If
you add them as editors they will only be allowed to edit existing
pages. You can also use the new page-level permissions option to allow students to only edit the pages that you grant them access to.

2. As a digital portfolio: Google Sites can be used by students
to create digital portfolios featuring their best works and
accomplishments. I would encourage high school students to develop a
digital portfolio that they can share with university admissions
officers. Teachers should also consider developing a digital portfolio
of their best lesson plans, credentials, and references to include when
they apply for teaching positions.

3. As a digital file cabinet: If you have PDFs, Word files, or
other documents that you want your students to be able to easily
download, consider using the File Cabinet option in Google Sites. By
creating a File Cabinet page you provide a place for those files to be
easily accessed. You might also consider putting up a File Cabinet page
for forms like permission slips that parents need to access.

4. As a blog: Use the Announcements template to create a blog
page within your Google Sites. You can update the blog or make the blog
page collaborative and let your students contribute to a class blog.

5. As a website: I left the most obvious option for last. If you
need to create a place where parents and students can come to find
important information about your course(s) or your school, Google Sites
provides all of the tools for that. Incorporate a blog element (see #4
above) for posting updates and use the rest of the pages to house
information that doesn’t change that often. You can also incorporate a
file cabinet (see #3 above) to post forms for parents to download. And
if you’re using Google Calendar, you can easily add a calendar of events
to any page in your Google Site.