After several revamps, I have finally got my class Google site to where I want it. I am beyond proud of it! Mainly because it has taken me a number of edits, many, many hours and a lot of creativity but I feel it achieves all of the things I need my site to achieve, as well as having an appearance that I hope will prove accessible to students.

There are some videos here that show you the basics of creating your own Google site. I created the graphics using Canva (which can make anyone look like a designer quite easily!). The key was ensuring icons were all the same size, my colour palette was limited and fonts were matching so that the site didn’t look too cluttered (thanks James Kieft for these tips over time).

The small logos at the bottom were a big win as they link to all of the key links that students will need frequently, including Hanopoly without being too obtrusive on the page.

I love my ‘Where Next?‘ flowchart- although I don’t think it’s the most sophisticated tool! Each of the possible opportunities links to Padlet walls and if you could please donate any useful links, images and videos to the pages, I’d be very grateful and feel free to use the page with your students too if it’s useful.

The Course Handbook is obviously created in Joomag (because I love that tool!) so that it’s an interactive online booklet that I can add to/change if necessary. Next step will be perhaps paying for an account so that my magazines can be viewed on any device.

Perhaps the best thing about the way in which I’ve created the site is that I won’t need to continue updating it. The lesson resources and sample essays connect straight to Google Drive folders that I can carry on updating throughout the year. The other icons have had a great deal of thought so that all bases are covered and the only one that will change is the flying start button when that has expired- but I have a replacement button all lined up to link students to the student intranet.

Moodle? What Moodle?!