Starter / Review - Students to complete
Challenge - Designing a website
Please think about the Theme, examples below:
School Club Website / reward website
Theme: Fun, colorful, energetic
Audience: Club members, other students interested in joining
Content: About the club, events calendar, photos from meetings, how to join
Personal Portfolio
Theme: Clean, professional, minimalist
Audience: Potential employers, teachers, or clients
Content: Resume, projects, skills, contact info
Event (football match) or Fundraiser Page
Theme: Bold, attention-grabbing, clear call-to-action
Audience: Community members, donors, attendees
Content: Event details, how to participate or donate, updates
Travel Blog or Destination Guide / Cooking blog
Theme: Bright, adventurous, inviting
Audience: Travel enthusiasts, friends, family
Content: Travel stories, photos, tips, maps
Small Business or Product Website
Theme: Professional, trustworthy, clean design
Audience: Customers or clients
Content: Product descriptions, pricing, testimonials, contact form
Educational Resource Site
Theme: Simple, organized, easy to read
Audience: Students, teachers, parents
Content: Study guides, lesson plans, educational videos
Fan or Hobby Page
Theme: Playful or thematic (e.g., sports team colors)
Audience: Fans or community members
Content: News, fan art, event schedules, forums
What is Google sites?
Google Sites is Google's own CMS that allows you to build a website for free. You can use your own domain and customise your template with copy, images, fonts, headers, footers, and menus. If you’re an experienced website builder or consider yourself particularly tech-savvy, Google’s framework provides plenty of web development and deployment options to leverage at your leisure.
Step 1: Open Google Sites.
Step 2: Open the Google Sites Support Page.
Step 3: Add layouts, text, and images.
Step 4: Use free or paid templates to help your site stand out.
Step 5: Click “Publish” when you’re done
Step 6: Let others view or edit your website.
Head to Google Sites to start creating your new website. If this is your first time building a website, but you’re a seasoned Google user, you’ll find that the layout of this page is similar to all other Google products, such as Google Docs and Google Slides. Definitely a huge plus in my book.
To begin creating your website, you can either use Google’s templates or start a site from scratch.
Even if you start a site from scratch, Google Sites will include a header for you to edit right away and hit the ground running. This is awesome — it makes starting a site much less intimidating.
The process is quite intuitive. Simply click on the header text and start editing.
Your standard text options will come up: Text style, font, text size, and formatting. Click around and get acquainted with your options. I named my site “Coffee & Café,” the most imaginative name in the universe.
Add a Background Image
Next, you’ll want to choose a background image, unless you’re using a title-only header. At the bottom menu of the header, click “Image.”
You can upload an image from your computer, or you can browse Google’s options, your internal library, and Google itself. You can also insert an image via a URL. Remember to choose an image you have the rights to use, or use a free stock photo website.
I chose to look for an image from a free stock photo website called Unsplash. This is how my header turned out:
Changing your Header Type
Google Sites gives you the option of changing your header type to a full-height cover image, to a narrow banner, or to your title only. To access these options, hover at the bottom of your header and click “Header Type.”
There, you’ll see your options. I chose “Cover” so that my header took up the entirety of the page.
Add Subheadings and Buttons
We’re not finished yet. Google Sites allows you to add more elements to your header so that you can pull viewers in. To add more elements, you can double-click anywhere on the cover, and a neat menu will pop up:
First, open Canva and go to “Animated Logos” for a library of professionally designed templates to draw inspiration from and customize.
Select the right animated logo style to fit your brand. ...
Customize your animated logo. ...
Download as an MP4 video or GIF file. ...
Add it to your various visual branding media
Add Your Logo to your website
Next, I changed the logo. In the upper right-left corner, hover over your site name, and click “Add logo.”
This will open your site settings, where you can both upload a logo and a favicon. The favicon is the small symbol that appears next to your website name on a browser tab. This icon also appears in users’ favorites if they happen to favorite or bookmark your site.
Add HTML, CSS, or JavaScript code to your site
On a computer, open a site in new Google Sites.
At the right, click Insert Embed. You can also add an embed as an entire page. ...
Click Embed code.
Add your code, then click Next. ...
Click Insert.
To publish your changes, at the top right, click Publish.
Explore Themes
Before we move on from the header, I wanted to draw your attention to Google Sites’ themes on the right-hand side, located under the “Themes” tab. These are different from templates. The themes allow you to choose a general aesthetic for your website.
You can also create a theme with custom colors and fonts, or upload one from your local drive.
It’s time to start building our home page. Using the “Insert” tab in the right-hand sidebar, you can add layouts, text, images, and videos. Let’s go over our options for page building and customization.
Content Blocks: These are premade layouts that you can insert into your page. They come with placeholders for images, headers, and text.
Collapsible Group: Create a section with sections that can expand or retract.
Table of Contents: Insert a table of contents that automatically populates based on your page’s headings.
Image Carousel: Insert a carousel of pictures.
Button: Add a button with a link. When I used this feature, I was unable to adjust the spacing around the text; you can only change the alignment of the button.
Divider: Add a line that runs across your page to split different sections.
Spacer: Insert an area of white space, which you can resize by dragging.
Social Links: Create links to your social media profiles. You can upload custom icons, but Google Sites will automatically generate icons for the most common social sites.
Placeholder: Add an “empty” block to insert an image, video, or map later. Helpful for creating a layout without yet adding content.
Cloud Search: Insert a search function to your page. I generally don’t recommend this unless you deactivated the search icon at the top of your website header.
YouTube: Add a YouTube video from the entire YouTube library, or upload a video.
Calendar: Insert a widget from your Google Calendar. This only shows your agenda; it wouldn’t replace a meeting scheduler embed widget.
Map: Add an embed from Google Maps.
Docs, Slides, and Sheets: Insert an embed from any document in your Google Drive; users can scroll through the entire file, which can be exceedingly useful for internal team websites.
Forms: Insert a Google Form, but you’ll need to create it ahead of time; there’s no option to create it straight from Google Sites.
Charts: Insert a chart, taken from a Google Sheets file; you’ll need to create the file ahead of time. Google Sites won’t import the entire spreadsheet but only the charts found inside.
10 Most Insane Amusement Rides Around The World
You know what I find interesting about theme parks? It’s the fact that we go there to have some of the most thrilling and scary experiences in life, and sometimes, we even repeat, as if we can’t get enough of that. Isn’t that a bit crazy? Shouldn’t we be looking for more relaxing and slow experiences to escape the routine and stress of everyday life? Nah, I don’t think so! Amusement parks can be extreme, but they surely put a smile on our faces. And the more thrilling a ride becomes, the more we’ll enjoy it. Today we’ll be looking at the “10 most insane amusement rides around the World.” We’ll be looking at roller coasters and water park rides that have given us some of the most exciting and at times...life changing rides ever. Watch out, because some of them pushed some boundaries, to the point that some of them had to close down for good. Can you imagine the reason? You’re about to find out...
The Skyscreamer, Giant Canyon Swing, Insanity, Drop of Doom and more.....
Google Sites allows you to create new pages under the “Pages” tab in its sidebar. Click the plus-sign at the bottom.
Add a link
On a computer, open a site in classic Google Sites.
Click where you want to add a link, or highlight the text that you want to link.
In the toolbar, click Link .
Select an option.
Click OK.
Widgets can be accessed for free but with restrictions i.e. only one widget per account
Student Progress Record
To be completed at the end of the units (Term)