Google Sites - Google's VLE, and it's free!
Just a quick post about Google Sites. This is Google’s relaunched version of a wonderful online application we’ve used in the past called JotSpot. JotSpot was aquired by Google about 9 months ago (perhaps longer), since then I’ve heard little about their plans for the service.
Well that has all now changed with the launch of Google Sites and it seems to fit really well with the existing services available (as you would imagine from them!). In fact, after spending a few minutes playing with the product I’m starting to wonder if this service could rival some of the virtual learning environment’s basic services.
The original premise of JotSpot was to be a personal or team wiki with numerous widgets that could manage calenders, contact details and just about anything else within the Personal Information Management space. We really loved using it in the early days of Sarsen Education when everybody was working as a disparate team that needed a cheap central store for all our project information. Because we had an account, we continued to use it after they were acquired however when we incorporated we moved all our information to a corporate server.
Check out the video below from Google about the service, over the Easter break I’m going to write and distribute an article about Google Sites detailing how teachers can create and use the service effectively at the classroom and school level. When this is ready I’ll post a blog here.
Niks
