Last week, I had the pleasure of working with the teachers of New Horizons, ETSB. New Horizons is an adult education centre that offers courses in an individualized setting. Classes are often multi-level and multi-subject. To help address some of the challenges that come with individualized teaching, Ryan Kirby, a teacher at New Horizons has led a school-wide initiative to create and maintain a Google Site. In a nutshell, Google Sites is an online platform that allows you to create a team website without complicated coding or logistics.
The New Horizons Google Site is a little different than most traditional school websites. Here’s why:
- The New Horizons Google Site focuses on being simple, no bells or whistles. It’s basically a space to provide resources/handouts for students. That’s it.
- All the teachers have agreed to use the New Horizons Google Site platform. This ensures a uniform experience for the students in all the classes.
- The website is designed for an individualized centre with continuous intake. Students can jump-in at any point during the course and access handouts/resources. It works on phones, laptops, and tablets.
- To save time on maintenance, the site does not contain class updates or news. Each teacher’s section is simply a link to their respective Google Folder with handouts and resources.
- No web design knowledge is needed. Each teacher is ONLY responsible for maintaining files in their respective Google Drive folder. Changes appear live.
- All teachers have access to each other’s course materials. This helps if there is a general block and the student says they have nothing to work on.
Curious to see what the site looks like? Please see this two minute video tour I took with Ryan Kirby and Shanna Loach. Thanks Ryan and Shanna!
