Google Sites

At Pt England School we use Google Sites in order to make the learning visible to both students and whanau.  This is extremely well used in the senior school and I've been keen to see what was possible in the junior area.

As always, after talking to Michelle, we decided to try 'small' and scaffold the students well to give it the maximum chance of success.  I created a page with a small selection of reading options for students to select from when they have completed their guided reading and follow up activity.  It includes links to Explain Everything files for the students to download onto their device and work on independently. I had to redraft the options however, as when we tested it, the larger Explain Everything files (with embedded video clips) were not easily downloaded to the devices and would have caused confusion for the learners.

We are now ready to roll out the page to the students.  I have placed a link on their iPad dashboard so they land right onto the page - the first step in scaffolding.  It is our hope that in future weeks students will be able to navigate our whole class site and we will be able to use the site for other curriculum areas.

In order to assist with the scaffolding, I have also created a "how to" video to support the students if they forget how to download the files.