Documenting Learning with New Google Sites
Phil Taylor
Google Sites delivers the simplest way to display Google Drive files, YouTube videos, calendars, images, and maps on the web. Every page is an easy-to-read clean design, that is automatically formatted for display on a desktop, tablet, or phone. The elements of every site work together, thanks to themes, fonts, and colour choices that help you create a coherent design. Students can focus on creating the content of their site to document their learning.
Students and teachers can also work collaboratively in real time to create project sites, learning portfolios, etc., to create and showcase their learning.
This session will focus on the creation of a site, along with a conversation about the many possibilities this modernised version of Google Sites adds to your digital tool kit.
Workshop Prerequisites:
Active Google Workspace for Education or G Mail account
Familiarity with Google apps such as: Google Docs, Sheets, Slides
BYOD - Laptop or Chromebook - Google Sites cannot be created on mobile browsers
Chrome Browser highly recommended
Digital Portfolios and Content Blog Post
Types of Digital Portfolios
Traditionally, the content for portfolios would fall under the following categories connected to the types of portfolios:
showcase– uploading of final artifacts, best work, best achievement, outcome of a project
process– highlights, as the name says, the process of learning. Upload snapshots of moments in time, the stages of a project, first (second, third, etc.) drafts,
hybrid– a combination of showcase and process portfolio
When looking at learner’s digital portfolios, I want to add the following types to the mix (without excluding the previous three mentioned or the numerous others that can be found online, such as assessment portfolios, reflective portfolios, developmental portfolios, etc.)
Classroom Portfolios: collaborative portfolio, content created by teachers and students of a classroom. Entries are tagged/categorized with individual authors.
(Individual) Student Portfolios: each student maintains their own portfolio, being the sole author of the site.
Professional Learning Portfolios: Educators seeing themselves as lifelong learners, recognizing the value of documenting for their own learning and the learning of others.
