Google Custom Search is extremely useful because you can set it to search over a list of pre-selected sites, knowing that learners will be getting the results you want them to see.  It’s also a good tool to use with an interactive whiteboard so no unexpected results come up on screen (even the most innocent of keywords can bring up some dubious results!).

To use Google Custom Search you need a webpage that you can embed the HTML code in – I use Google Sites which is free and simple to configure.  Follow the steps below and create your own custom search engines.  You can even add a logo to your results (and remove adverts if you are a school or non-profit) but I haven’t shown these steps in my guide.

Set up your search engine and enter a list of sites to search 

Once your search engine is set up, follow these steps from the ‘Control panel’

Pick a style and get the code to put on your website

Copy and paste the code and then go to your site to embed it.  These pictures are from Google sites

Use these options to change where the search engine appears on the page, and the size of the search engine box.

Save your page and the custom search engine is ready for use.

• Disable sharing outside of the domain unless you know need this functionality.
• Make sure pupils are aware of the sharing status of their own site.
  
• Have all pupils tag their Google site with a class or even site-wide tag so make monitoring easy
  

Google – you need to add an easy way of checking if any of your employees are leaking company information by mistake!

Clearly working in this way makes planning hard, since the staff involved are on different sites 2 miles apart.  In the past when we’ve worked in this way we’ve had to meet up and plan in blocks of lessons, emailing resources and materials between sites.  However this time we’ve decided to use technology to make life easier! I chose Google Sites since we already have a Google Apps account for school, and I’ve used it before for personal sites.

The site is a little bare at the moment since we haven’t planned much of the course.  However you can see how the site is starting to take shape, with individual modules down the left hand side.

Within each topic I’ve added an overview of the topic as a table, and individual sub-pages for each lesson.  Clicking on a lesson brings up an outline lesson plan and all the resources added as attachments.

The real beauty of working this way is that either party can add, delete and edit content, and the site always shows an up-to-date copy of the plans.  Another huge advantage is the ability to subscribe to changes – meaning you can opt to receive an email when changes are made to the site by staff from either school.

As the collaboration develops, we will be using Google Docs to jointly create and edit assessment material, and also to track pupils’ progress.

I’ll keep posting through the year and report on our progress.  I’d also be interested to hear from anyone who uses a wiki or similar to manage collaboration of any kind.

I’ve been pretty amazed at the number of people (presumably teachers and teaching assistants) who have found my resources online.  I’m getting 20 to 40 hits a day which I was quite pleased with.  In the three weeks since I uploaded the BTEC Science resources, 230 people have followed the link from the TES site and the BTEC resources have had 800 page views (according to Google Analytics).

I attribute the popularity of these resources to the price (FREE!) and the fact that there are very few BTEC Science resources on the market despite the spiralling popularity of the course.  My head told me I ought to sell my resources commercially through a publisher, but that means polishing them further, and filling them out to cover more topics.  Having seen the dubious quality of many published SEN resources from authors who seem to have done just that I didn’t want to go down that route.  All of my resources were created to use with specific classes and not for cash.

After completing my NPQH I returned to the classroom as an AST because of my passion for science teaching and ensuring students have the best possible science education.  If giving my resources away means more teachers using them in their classrooms and enhancing the science education of their students then that is reward enough.  Ultimately I want to see teachers taking my ideas and techniques and using them with their own pupils to improve science provision for all.

That is why I give my science resources away!

(And that’s why I like to hear from people who use them!  If you use my resources in your science lessons, leave a comment below and let me know what you think of them!)

Task 2
Create a spreadsheet to track your BTEC Assignments on using Google Spreadsheets.  You will need to enter pupil names or identifiers in a way that complies with data protection legislation.  I colour the unfilled sheets in red.  When pupils start an assignment I colour the cell in orange, and in green when they have achieved a pass grade (thanks to Dukeries school for the traffic light system).
When your sheet is finished you need to publish it using the share options (view only, auto-republish).  This will allow anyone to view your sheet – needed later.
Task 3
Create a blank site using Google sites.  This site will need to be viewable by anybody – so click the option to share with the world.  Give the site a suitable name (preferably something simple so you can give it to your pupils).  Pick a theme that suits you and create.
The home page is where your introduction/welcome goes so click on edit page and enter some text.
Creating a page for your spreadsheet:
Click new page and enter a suitable name (e.g. assignments) and then create at the top level.  When you get your new page click insert on the menu bar and then look for the spreadsheet option.
Select your spreadsheet and click [OK].
Create a page for your bookmarks
Click create new page, give it a name and create it at the top level as before.  When you get your new page this time you click insert go for the more.. option at the bottom of the menu.  This should bring up the Google gadgets menu.  Type in delicious and click the search button.  The gadget you need is called “Del.icio.us bookmarks” – click on it once.
This should bring up another screen that asks you for some settings.  You need to know your delicious username and tags to input here – here is mine…
Click ok and your links page is done.
Additional pages
You can create additional pages in the same way – these could have information/text on them (e.g. deadlines).  You can embed YouTube videos (for pupils to view at home) or even create a page of files (file cabinet option) for assignment briefs, documentation  and so on.
Navigation bar
Now all you need to do is edit your navigation bar at the side.
Click edit sidebar on the left – this should allow you to change the layout of your site.  I removed the [Recent site activity] panel and then clicked edit on the [Navigation] panel.
This brings up a menu which allows you to add pages to the sidebar navigation.  Click [Add page to sidebar navigation] and select one of the pages you created (e.g. links)
Whilst a page is highlighted you can change the order of pages in the menu using the arrow keys at the side.  Click [OK] when your menu is complete.
Your site is now available at http://sites.google.com/sites/yoursitename
If you are technically minded you can register a domain name (e.g. a .co.uk address for your site but I’m not sure of the benefits if you have picked a sensible name for your site).
If you are new to Google Apps or Google sites feel free to contact me using the options at the top right of my blog (or click here) and I’ll do my best to help.

For those of you that haven’t used Google sites before, it is a simple page editor that gives you the ability to create simple nested pages, add files and google gadgets.  People who you give access to can edit the pages and add new content (to different degrees depending on their access).  You can even give a specific site you create a custom URL if you have a domain and access to your DNS.  There are a variety of templates and styles available, and editing is similar to using other google products.

I’ve set up a site with my science resources on here.  The structure of the site took minutes to set up once I’d decided on a structure.  Uploading lots of individual files took a while longer due to the sheer number of clicks required.  The site was created from start to finish in well under an hour.

I see plenty of potential for this within the the classroom (as part of the Google Apps for Education edition).  You can hide your pages from the internet (so surfers won’t stumble across them) and you can allow members of your domain to edit them.  Classes can work collaboratively on a set of pages for a topic and the teacher can subscribe to the page to see how it develops.  Malicious editing is deterred by the revision history.  Google sites has much of the power of a typical wiki without getting bogged down in esoteric wiki commands and formatting.

Google sites could even be used by a school to build a simple intranet if you haven’t got one yet in your school.   This video shows a little more of what is possible with Google sites:

It would be interesting to here from anyone who has used Google Sites in an educational context and how it went.