Create a website using Google Sites

You can create a completely functional teacher website using Google Sites, which is a part of your Google account!

Goto www.sites.google.com. Select New Google Sites.

Select the plus sign in the red circle in the bottom right corner to create your new site.

Click on Untitled Site in the upper left corner to name your website project.

Click on Your page title to title your website. This is what visitors to your site will see.

When you click on the text, a basic editor window will appear. Click where it says Title to change the size and type of heading. Next is your justification setting, the hyperlink icon, and finally the trashcan to delete the text.

To change the color and style of your text and upper banner, click Themes in the upper right corner. You will have several options to choose from. Note that you do not have infinite customizable options.

Below your header is now a white, empty space waiting for content. To start adding content, be sure you select Insert from the menu in the upper right.

The above picture contains a few of the main editing options - a text box to insert text onto the page, images to insert a photo, ember URL to include a link to an external webpage, and upload to include a file located on your computer.

Other possible additions to your site can be found in the menu on the right side of your screen.

• From Drive allows you to embed files from your Google Drive. Note that you must set the file sharing permissions to On - public on the web if you want your files to be visible by all visitors to your site.
• YouTube is used to insert a YouTube video. Select Video Search to search for an existing video, or select Uploaded to browse through videos that you have already uploaded to YouTube.
• You can embed your Google Calendar by selecting Calendar. Be sure to select the correct calendar from your list of calendars. Your main calendar is named after you.
• You can show your location on a Google Map by selecting Maps.
• Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, and Charts allows you to embed the same file types from your Google Drive, the same as From Drive. To insert a file, click it once, then click Insert on the bottom right of your screen.

Once you add any of the above to your site, then can then left-click and drag your new addition to another part of the page. You can also grab the blue “handles” that appear then your file is selected to make it appear larger or smaller on the page.

To add more pages to your site, select Pages from the upper right, then click on the icon indicated in this photo.

Be sure to give your page a relevant name, as that is the name that will appear in the page’s navigation menu. Note that you will not see this navigation menu until you create at least a second page.

Just right of center near the top of your screen, you will see the above menu. The left-arrow is to undo your last edit, the right-arrow to redo. The eyeball will allow you to preview your site as visitors would see it on the web. Use this frequently while editing your site to ensure that your edits are yielding the desired results. The plus sign next to a person’s head is the familiar Google share icon. You can share your site with your colleagues so that they can collaborate with you on it.

Finally, when you are finished editing, click Publish.  Under Site Location, enter a short variation on the name of your site. This will complete your website’s URL, for example, https://sites.google.com/mpsct.org/yoursitename. Under Who can visit my site, select Anyone on the web if your site is intended for parental viewing. If your site is only for MPS staff or students, you can select Anyone at mpsct.org.

If you would like assistance creating your site, please contact Instructional Technology Coach Steve Matthews at matthewss@mpsct.org to set up an appointment.

Created by Steve Matthews, MPS iTech, 8.23.17

Editing Your Teacher Profile on School Messenger

Your teacher profile will be the public’s first snapshot of your as a teacher when they search for you on our district website.

Your profile contains your name, position, email address, website, blog, links to social media (district approved), location, office hours, and biography. You should provide as much information as you are able to facilitate parent and student engagement.

To get to your profile:

• First, you need to login to the MPS district site. Goto www.middletownschools.org. In the upper left corner, click on Select a school, then choose your school assignment from the dropdown menu.
• Next, click Login from the upper right.
• Enter the username and password that you use for your computer login, not your Google account, then click Login. *Note - Your username will be your last name/first initial without @mpsct.org.
• You will see your username in the upper right corner next to Logout and the Search Bar, click on it

• You will see a summary of your profile along with the tabs shown in the picture above. Select Edit User.

• Verify that the info shown in the User Details window is correct. Now select User Profile.
• Fill out as much of the User Profile as you deem necessary, noting that you do not have to include your personal address or cell phone number, but if you decide to do so, you have the option to select the Keep Private check box.

The first field in your profile is for your website. This is where you will paste your website URL, once you have created your site. If you have a blog, you can paste the URL for that in the Blog field directly below.

You can put links to your various MPS social media sites in the Social Media section of your profile. All MPS staff have Google accounts which include Google+ and YouTube. The first tiem you use either will require a bit of set up, email Tech Coach Steve Matthews if you would like assistance. If you have set up Facebook or Twitter accounts on behalf of your class or department, enter those URLs here.

Most importantly, when you are finished updating your profile, click Update User.

To include a photo in your profile, select User Photo, then Choose File to upload a picture from your computer. After you have selected your photo, click Upload to complete the process.

Created by Steve Matthews, MPS iTech, 8.23.17

Collaborating more efficiently with Team Drives

A new feature of Google Drive is that of the Team Drive. Now you can create shared Drives within your Google Drive and give access to any of your colleagues!

This may seem redundant if you are already sharing documents, but chances are some people are missing what you have shared with them. Check out the presentation for a quick starter!

Differentiating assignments by student in Google Classroom

Google recently rolled out an update to Google Classroom allowing teachers to distribute assignments to certain students within a class, allowing for greater ease (and confidentiality) in differentiating assignments.

After initially creating the assignment, click on "All Students" as indicated below. You can select specific students from the resulting drop-down list. Only the selected students will see the assignment in their class stream.

See also this video:

Click to enlarge