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Google Goes Wiki – Introducing: Google Sites!
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Good morning everyone,I was planning to blog today about the unbelievable response our 8th graders just had to Google Apps rollout this week (the entire experience has been terrific on many levels, so energizing and fun to watch) but I just (this morning) came across some news I have to share:
Google now does wikis! Say hello to Google Sites: http://sites.google.com!
It all happened as I was literally combing through our Google Apps Team Edition site. I came across a small banner in the margin saying something about a wiki. “That’s odd,” I thought to myself. “Google doesn’t have a wiki tool.” Well, as fate would have it, they do, as of YESTERDAY, which was the official launch of Google Sites, essentially a rebranded and souped-up Jotspot (which Google acquired a while back). This is so new it’s not even on the Official Google Blog yet! I’ve scooped Mother Google. Unthinkable! (To be fair, it’s being talked about elsewhere on the web, here, here, here or here.)
Talk about odd coincidences … just the other day set up a wiki for an upcoming project I’m working on with Peggy Sheehy and Bernajean Porter (a week-long digital storytelling project at Peggy’s school involving Second Life, can’t wait to tell you about THAT one, I’m spending my spring break there!) Peggy asked, “We need a collaborative work space, something easy for everyone, should we use a Google doc, a wiki, or what?” My response was to create a wiki using wikispaces.com, the service is SO easy to use. But now, next time I need a wiki, I’m going to look at Google Sites! Here’s their demo/intro video. Sweet!
Google Sites appears to actually be a potential competitor to Google Pages, especially when you look at how easy you can throw together a rich, good-looking, feature-laden classroom website:
Wow … check it! Instant site maps, cool widgets, easy multimedia, great styles and templates, what’s not to like? This is WAY more visually appealing than Wikispaces. This is now showing up on our Google Apps Team Edition page – our students can start building wikis for their 8th grade science projects. Too cool! Best of all, it’s fully integrated with the entire suite of Google Apps tools. And it’s free. Of course! Check out Google Sites for yourself and your classroom!
Hope this helps!
-kj-
5 Responses to “Google Goes Wiki – Introducing: Google Sites!”
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Wow, you got the scoop! Thanks for sharing it so fast – I can’t wait to get started using it. I love having everything tied to one account: my blog, reader, documents, etc. This is just what I needed.
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Nancy said on February 28th, 2008 at 10:35 am
I have been soooooo waiting for Google to get this app up and running. I too read about it on another blog early this a.m. Just set up the account (though now sure why it ONLY works w/ the Google Apps and not the regular Google account holder (hmmm…). I’ve been looking at ways to easily update my weekly lessons from home, other than my webpage which requires waiting until I get to school to copy/paste then save to intranet (double the work). This is sooooooo COOL! It’s also a great way to leave substitute plans (especially in computer labs) and in fact, I’ve already created a page that says ‘SUBSTITUTE PLANS’ so the kids will know what to do.
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This is JotSpot that they bought, edited and have now released as Google Sites. They send out emails today to everyone who signed up to be advise of the release.
Looking forward to road testing it.
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Hi Kevin… I rolled this out with a select group of 15 students today. How did you get the e-mail notifications to stop? Did you just delete their mailboxes? I only had a few after today’s introduction but I am hoping to eventually roll this out to about 700 students. The e-mails could be a problem!
Thanks again for sharing this resource! The kids love it already!
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Hi Valerie!
I stopped the emails by deleting the email forwards I had set up on this domain. As I said above, I had almost 900 emails the first day!
Glad you like the service, good luck with it!
-kj-
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