VirtualMV/Digital Learning Technologies/Networking/Google Sites

Objectives

 * Google sites Tutorial
 * Resource center for eportfolios

Getting started
Before you can create a Google site you will need to create a Google account. While you can link up an existing email account and make this your Google login, I generally recommend creating a unique Google account e. myaccount@gmail.com

In the gmail settings use mail forward to send any mail that arrives to the account you normally use. This has the advantage of having an independent email that can travel with you. For example, if you normally use your business account for email, and you moved organisations you would still need to login to Google with your "old" email account. (This paragraph really needs a re-write!!)

ePortfolios - using Google Sites
Privacy and sharing:

Now that you have created your site, you may want to make it private while you update it and make changes, or you may like to share it with your Tutor and classmates.

Click on More (located on the toolbar), then Sharing and Permissions.



When you first create your site, it is public for everyone to see. Change this to private.




 * Click Change
 * Click next to Only You and click Save.
 * If you wish to add individuals at this stage, click on Add People, and give them appropriate rights (Can Edit, Can View)
 * Share and save.

You may want to explore changing the look of your portfolio at this point. There are many to choose from. Click on Themes, find one you like and save.

Return to your site by clicking on your site name (top left)

Page Editing
To edit a page, click on the pen icon.

The editing toolbar will appear, giving you options to change text size, colour and font. Experiment with the front page. If you change the name of the page, it will change the link on the navigation bar.

Click on save each time you finish editing a page.

Each page can be accessed using the links in the side bar. Edit each page; make a small change so you get the idea. Make a journal post. (This is your blog)

Adding Images
Your teacher will have shared a photo folder with you. Next we will need to go to your Google Drive and collect photos to download.

Open a new window.

Type drive.google.com into the browser address bar. You may be prompted to login again.

You should see a folder named photos. Click on this to open. If you would like to change the view so you can see the photos without clicking on each one, click on the little four squares to change the view so you can see the photos rather than just the link.

If you would like to use this photo in your portfolio, right click and save to your computer.

When you have collected the photos you want to use, close this window and return to your portfolio.

On the portfolio page that you want to insert a picture on, click on edit, then insert, then image. Click on browse and locate the photo on your computer. Click on OK.

From Google Drive How to include a google drive image in your google sites page.


 * 1) Make sure your google image is public. ( I havent tested this, assume it would need to be)
 * 2) Add the "include gadget iframe"  (from the more gadgets option) from the Insert file menu in google sites (search under public)
 * 3) Paste the url of your google image in the following format (this is just an example of the URL - it doesnt link anywhere) https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6W2mPHFAMZ3c2xncHVVNzNOM28/preview - (change edit to preview)
 * 4) Fill in the parameters (may take some experimentation with w and h)

Alternative method
 * 1) Open Google drive
 * 2) Create >> Drawing
 * 3) Drag photo from HD (or picasa/webpage/google drive but not facebook) onto canvas.
 * 4) Align photo to top left corner
 * 5) Resize canvas to fit (bottom right) and rename