In this final leg of my journey through technology (though my adventures will continue as I am a lifelong learner) I explored Google Sites and created my own classroom web page.  See it here.  I created a communication tool between my students, their parents, and myself.  My web page gives pertinent information that the parents and students may need such as, my contact information, class rules and procedures, class schedule, calendar, spelling lists, and links to additional resources.  I have also included a photo album for parents to enjoy, by bringing the classroom to them.  I have wanted to create a classroom web page that would include all of these items for years and now I have one in time to show parents at conferences.

Google Sites threw me  for a learning curve because I have never tried to do anything like this before.  This was all new to me.  However, after watching some great tutorial videos and playing around, I found it to pretty simple to use.  I like how Sites allows the user to select from many different themes.  It also allows the user to create from a template.  I started out with a blank template to create a site that would work for me.  The program is set up like a word processing program and has many of the same features.  This makes the program easier to figure out, and makes adding photos and clip art easier to add.  The only limit is how creative the user can be.  I plan to update my web page on a weekly basis through my announcement page.  It allows me to post new events or news from my classroom and these posts are archived.  I also plan to update my spelling lists monthly.  This is easy since my lists are already saved to my Google Docs.  Google Sites is fully integrated with other features provided by Google.  Sharing has never been easier!  Here are some great tutorials to get you started.

I found that Google Sites was easy to use and helped me to create a valuable resource for my classroom.  Soon I plan on adding some of my Custom Search Engines that I have created for my students.  The possibilities of Google Sites are endless.  I can't wait to share this with my parents at conferences.  My students already love my new site.  Happy creating!