My school uses Moodle as our platform for sharing course materials. I used it for two years, but it was just way too clunky for me – editing everything takes thrice as many clicks as it should. So last year I decided to upgrade to a Google Site for my class. I just redesigned it for the upcoming school year and it looks really pretty, so I wanted to share it:

Here’s the new site, which doesn’t have any content yet, but will aim to do the same thing as my old course website for the same class (if you want to see what content I put on there). On my site students…

• Check their homework assignments (I do not write homework on the board, just announce that there is homework)
• Check for upcoming tests and quizzes – I write which standards are included, so then students…
• Read the text of standards for the course
• Access materials to study for specific standards, whether for the first quiz, or for a reassessment
• Find daily materials including images, problems and links for students who take notes on the computer
• Leave anonymous feedback for me
• Check their grades (I make internet reports with EasyGrade Pro, host them in my Public Dropbox folder and link from this website)
• Access the grading scale for standards
• Request a Reassessment, through a Google Form, which goes to a spreadsheet I can see
• Access a virtual whiteboard through Scribblar where we can interact virtually after hours, or where students can interact with each other (experiment this year)
• Fold their laundry (there’s an app for that)

As you can tell, I use it for a lot of different things in my class, all aimed to INCREASE student accountability, which is why I spent time to make it look how I wanted it to. Some tweeps enjoyed the look (and the fact that I have some goofy elements in my Reassessment Request form, check them out), and they were wondering if I could post a template for the site, so I did! When you are making your Google site, if you are at the “Manage Site” interface, click on Themes at the bottom of the sidebar and then click on the Browse More Themes button at the top right.

Theme name: Math Class Portal – @bowmanimal

The pretty banner wont be there, but other than that everything else should. The only thing that you really have to change besides adding your own content are the forms embedded in the Reassessment Request page and the Anonymous Feedback page. Those are both Google Forms. You can either link your own existing forms … OR I posted templates of those in the Google Doc Templates which you can modify and use.

• Go to docs.google.com/templates
• Search for “Bowman Dickson“
• One is named “Anonymous Feedback Template” and one is named “Reassessment Request Template“
• Just click on “Use this template” to make your own. In the document, if you go to Form –> Edit Form, you can make your revisions.
• Then link the forms from the website to the one you created instead of the ones from my template.

PS. The background of my website is an origami crease pattern… if you do some origami and then unfold it so the paper is flat, you can color the creases and the folds different colors to reflect the 3D structure. Beautiful!