I decided to make a “How-To” video for my colleagues so they can create a simple classroom website using Google Sites. A few weeks back I built my own site using Google Sites and I liked the way it turned out. So this was a perfect opportunity to giveback to my colleagues, play with with some GAFE, and do my first ever screencast using Snagit. I’m aware that Google Sites is updating, but this will work for this class year.

This is only the first part of the “How-To” series, the next portion will be embedding Google Slides and Calendar into your class website, and the final piece will be creating a website banner using Google Drawing. I plan on sharing a link to my website with my colleagues and then my playlist with the three videos so they can create their own before the school year starts, so hopefully in a few weeks.

A well-designed classroom website can really help out parents and keep emails about homework or schedules to a minimum. This can allow the teacher to focus on more important items such as the curriculum and the students themselves.

It did not take long for me to get Snagit working as a screencast machine, my direct instruction + modeling of my screen were well-taken care of. It is light on the editing side and it is definitely better suited as an image capturer. I would have preferred to add even some minimal music/sound effects and light text throughout. I believe Camtasia would be a better option for what I had in my head, but I’m not ready to shell out $99 bucks yet for my fledgling screencapture career.

I did do some minimal editing using a combination of Snagit and YouTube Creator Studio:

• Cut out some awkward moments at the beginning and end of the video (mostly silence)
• Created a title slide in Google Slides, and then recorded some audio over it (intentionally weird as an attention grabber).
• Combined the title slide and tutorial in YouTube Creator Studio
• Selected a custom thumbnail picture

Again, I would have liked to add some text to the video, sound effects, and maybe a little bit of music. YouTube Creator Studio only lets me put in songs that start at the beginning of the video. I just wanted snippets here and there. Sound effects like applause or surprise would be fun too, again- I don’t see that option. Adding text onto the screen when I discuss links or button names would be nice too. I think I would need something like Camtasia to do what I have in my head. Creator Studio could add text, but it wasn’t what I was looking for- looked cheesy and possibly distracting.

I feel my video is fine for what it is. With more powerful editing software I think it would be more enjoyable and helpful to do everything I had in my head. Without further ado….my wonderful creation:

Creating a classroom website using Google Sites -by Caleb Neilson