This document provides a brief getting started guide to creating a basic class web site using Google Sites.

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1 wazmac QuickStart Getting Started with Google Sites Background This document provides a brief getting started guide to creating a basic class web site using Google Sites. Google Sites is free to anyone who has a Google account. It is also a part of the Google Apps for Education suite of applications. If you do not already have a Google account go to accounts.google.com/signup and create a new (free) account. Planning Before launching into the creation of a new web site for your class, you should plan what the structure of the site will look like. You can change your site completely after you create it, but to get started we need to at least have an idea of the basic layout. I suggest that a quick mud-map sketch might be a good starting point... This is likely to be a little different for everyone of course, but the basic idea is that the site becomes a gateway to online resources that you might use in class.

2 1. Creating your site 1.1. Open a web browser and go to Click on the Create button at the left of the window Accept the default Blank template option Give your site a name. This will be the title of the Home page, and will be used to construct the final part of the address for the site. wazmac QuickStart: Getting Started with Google Sites! Page 2 of 10

3 1.5. A web-friendly address will be automatically generated from the name of the site. This address, for obvious reasons, must be unique. If you are using a Google Apps account it will be reasonably easy to create a unique address. This uniqueness will be restricted to your particular Google domain. If you are using a generic free Google account, you may have to juggle the text a little to find a unique address that is still reflective of the name of the class, as you are competing with every other free Google site in the world For the purposes of simplicity, we will leave everything else at the default settings for now. Click on the Create button at the top of the screen After a short delay you will see the Home page of your site What is the address of your new site? By default, all sites that you create with a free Google account are publicly available on the web. By default, all sites that you create with a Google Apps account are viewable only by people in your organisation. To see your site s address, and alter these permissions, click on the More button at the top right of the window. wazmac QuickStart: Getting Started with Google Sites! Page 3 of 10

4 1.9. Select Sharing and Permissions, under Site Actions in the More menu You will see the address of your site, and an option to change permissions relating to who can access the site Google Accounts and Google Apps users will see some slightly different options after this, but the basic idea is the same. Google account Google Apps You will also see a button to Enable Page Permissions (top right of permissions window) which you will be able to use later to restrict access to some pages in your site. wazmac QuickStart: Getting Started with Google Sites! Page 4 of 10

5 2. Adding pages to your site So far, our new web site has only one page - the Home page. Our initial mud-map suggested that we needed four pages, as well as the introductory Home page - Online Resources, Research Links, Projects, and Photos. We need to create these additional pages Click on the New Page button at the top right of the window Give the new page a name - this is the name that will appear in the navigation area for this page within your site. Accept the default settings for the Template (Web Page) and Location (Top Level) and click on the Create button at the top of the page Enter some temporary text on the page Click on the Save button at the top right of the page. wazmac QuickStart: Getting Started with Google Sites! Page 5 of 10

6 2.5. Repeat this process to continue adding additional pages to your site. Each page that you create will be added to the sidebar of the site, in alphabetical order. (You can choose to customise this order later, if required.) 2.6. If you want to edit any of the pages after saving them, click on the page in the sidebar, then click on the Edit button at the top of the page Let s remove the Sitemap entry from the sidebar Go to the More button (top right of window) and choose Edit site layout, under Site Actions Roll your mouse over the sidebar to see some extra options appear. Click within the sidebar to see the Sidebar options window. Click the Close button (top right) to close the layout editor window. wazmac QuickStart: Getting Started with Google Sites! Page 6 of 10

7 3. Adding content to the site pages Now that we have created a framework of pages for our site, we can add some content to each page Click on the name of a page in the sidebar to take you to that page Click on the Edit button at the top of the page Add some text to the page The Insert menu provides options for add a variety of other items to the page. wazmac QuickStart: Getting Started with Google Sites! Page 7 of 10

8 3.5. Use the Insert menu to add an image to the page. Be sure to have saved the image at a suitable size, and in an appropriate format (eg jpg). The text entered in the Alt text field will be displayed when visitors to your site roll their mouse over the image, and will assist people with a vision disability You can highlight text and use the Insert > Link option to link the text to an external webpage Highlight the text that will become a link Go to the Insert menu and choose Link. wazmac QuickStart: Getting Started with Google Sites! Page 8 of 10

9 Click on Web Address, and type (or paste) the address of the page which will be linked Choosing to open an external link in a new window (or tab) can make it easier for students to return to the class web site Click on the OK button to confirm the link Click on the Save (top right) button to save your changes Explore the other items in the Toolbar and the Insert, Table and Layout menus that provide further options to edit the page. wazmac QuickStart: Getting Started with Google Sites! Page 9 of 10

10 4. Changing your site s theme When we first created our new site we accepted the default settings, including the default theme. We can easily change the appearance of your site by changing the theme Click on the More menu (top right) and select Manage Site Choose Themes from the bottom of the sidebar menu You will see a choice of alternative themes Select a theme and click on the Preview button to see how your site will look if you apply that theme. Once you have selected a suitable theme click the Save button. wazmac QuickStart: Getting Started with Google Sites! Page 10 of 10