Using Google Sites for Distance Learning

 

Distance Learning Website

TWCA Lower School Website

Please excuse my absence from blogging, I've been working to create and develop a library website named READIT @ The Daniel Library and introducing a Makerspace lab for our lower school students.  After being on the other side of our school transitioning to distance learning during the 2019-2020 school year, I wanted to share a post on how we used Google Sites to help us to deliver instruction to our students.  

While our students were on Spring Break a decision was made to pivot to distance learning during the Covid-19 crisis.  We had less than a week to prepare a pathway for our students, their parents, and teachers to all have access to distance learning.  But what would this look like?  Through Zoom meetings, we knew that our current LMS would not be user-friendly for our students and their parents through distance learning.  The Lower School teachers and administrators decided to create a shared Google Site.  

I created the template for the teachers and assisted any teachers who needed help in working with our distance learning website.  Before going to distance learning, we had just held a faculty makerspace on the Clips app to make videos.  The teachers were ready to begin creating and uploading their daily lesson videos using this new knowledge.  Seeing everyone working and collaborating to create our lower school website was beautiful.  In less than 4 days, we all worked to create a website that looked like we had been doing distance learning for years.  

When Monday rolled around, we were there for our students and their parents to begin to access the distance learning lessons.  Of course, there were some hiccups to work through, but with the help of Google Sites, we delivered a well-made and designed access point to distance learning.  

If you need a way to continue delivering distance learning to your students and their families, you should look into Google Sites.  We found an LMS platform for the 2020-2021 school year and have been using it instead of our Google site.