Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Customizing Google Sites

What's the best tool for making a web site?  Weebly?  Wix? DreamWeaver? WordPress?  There are many options out there, but one of the easiest to use is Google Sites.  Google Sites also makes it easy to embed content from other Google Apps, such as Docs, Maps, and YouTube videos.

One concern I've heard about Google Sites is that "they all look the same."  In response to this, I've created a site that explains how to customize the look and feel of a Google Site.
Check it out here.


Here's a Google site that a CVU student made in Eleanor Marsh's class, as an example:


Tuesday, June 2, 2015

"Refrigerator Magnets" in Microsoft Word

Kathleen Gibbs' class was creating "found poems" and wanted a way to manipulate text.  This is a perfect application of technology.  I created a template in Microsoft Word that is comprised of text boxes that have no borders, can be moved and placed on top of one another, and can be re-sized and rotated (somewhat like those refrigerator magnets that people arrange into poems).

Here is what one student did with it (using text from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest):
Would you like to try this with your students?  I can't attach the template file here, but I will do so in a post to the faculty & staff forum.