Using a Google Site as a Blog

This  past week, I visited four schools to meet with principals, visit classrooms, and make recommendations for how to move technology integration to the next level. My goal is to highlight some of the best examples I saw in classrooms during my visits. Here is the first.  

Lori Sparks' 4th grade students at Commerce Elementary School were using Chromebooks to write book recommendations on a class website. Mrs. Sparks set up a Google Site, using the "Announcements" template for the pages, which is a format that is much like a blog. Each student had their own page and wrote about a book of their own choosing. 

The level of engagement was high; I did not observe even one student being off-task. When they were finished writing their own recommendation, they read their classmates' book recommendations and made comments. Mrs. Sparks remarked that she finds the comments feature to be very motivational to the students and is a quick and easy way for her to provide feedback, because everything is linked up in one place. I noticed that her feedback included clarifying questions and encouragement. She told me that setting up the web site, which is protected and only available to her class (at least for now), only took her about five minutes to set up. 

The use of a Google Site, like in this example, could be used in similar ways at any grade level and subject. It saves time, makes it easy to provide feedback (no files to find or papers to haul), is engaging, and allows for collaboration (which tends to be motivational). Also, when students see their work published online, they want to do their best work. A WIN WIN WIN WIN!