Instructional Uses
Digital Escape Rooms
Digital escape rooms, also referred to as digital breakouts, are a great way to bring gameplay and problem solving to any lesson or unit. They can be an exciting and engaging activity for the whole class or as an option for early finishers.
In a spin on the popular escape room challenge, a digital version combines:
a virtual “room” (often a Google Site) filled with clues that must be figured out
a digital lock made from an online form (usually a Google form) that students try to unlock
any theme for the escape room that will engage your participants
an appropriate level of difficulty (easy or extremely difficult) depending on the intended audience
Project Websites
Give students a broader audience to demonstrate their understanding by creating a project site and sharing it with students to edit and design in their own way!
When finished, you can publish the site and share it to a larger audience by setting the link permissions to Anyone with the link can view.
Teacher - Parent Connection Site
Make your classroom transparent to parents by creating a site to display contact information, a calendar of upcoming tests and assignments, photos and/or videos from your classes, and to display student work!
Tip: Make sure to update your parent portal site regularly to give parents a reason to keep coming back!
Video Repository
When students work on class activities, occasionally they need a refresher on certain topics they've learned before. Consider creating a website with lots of embedded videos that cover these topics. If they need a quick reminder, you can say "Go watch that quick video on the website." Additionally, if parents are helping students, they may also need a quick refresher - or a video can show a specific method students are learning in class (i.e. math concepts that can be modeled in a variety of ways).
ePortfolios
Create and share a site with students to keep a record of their work and learning throughout the course.
Bring the ePortfolio to meetings and conferences regarding the student!
Collaborative Class/Student Website
Create one site and give all students in the class edit rights.
Students then work collaboratively on the site and "own" a specific page in which to add content.
Some innovative uses of a collaborative class website could include:
Book Reviews - each student has a page and gives a summary of a book they read
Lesson Reviews - each student or a pair of students are assigned a page and a topic to "re-teach" from a unit, etc.
Passion Project
The idea behind a passion project is to help students learn about things they have a passion for. This could be related to content in the class or as an independent creative learning outlet for students.
In order for students to showcase their work, they might need a clearinghouse as they create artifacts, collect research, and organize materials, having a Google Site allows for them to begin building their final presentation while also allowing you to view the process.