The computer science courses I give this year are almost entirely project-based courses. I let them do two things to keep track of their progress during their projects. One of those things is the use of Google Spreadsheets to keep track of material and to keep track of their tests. The other thing they do is publish information about their projects on individual Google sites.
My students maintain individual Google sites where they write about and post photos about their projects. Some students also record unprocessed video clips. With my first-year students, I had them all organize their sites in the same format with pages for every month of the school year. I let my sophomore students (most of them), juniors and seniors organize their sites a little looser because they have larger but less frequent projects than my freshmen.
Benefits of digital portfolios
The advantage of having my student portfolios made is that I can not only quickly see what they are working on, they also have a source they can refer to when they are released after a few days or have to freshen up as we had just before breaking Thanksgiving.
Why Google Sites?
The reason I have chosen Google Sites for my students’ portfolios is because they all use G Suite for Education, so they can quickly insert their Google documents, sheets and slides into their sites if necessary.
Create a website with Google Sites
Watch the video below for more information about creating a website with Google Sites.
(Embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPzJzAScdKQ (/ embed)
Convert old Google sites to new ones
If you still have a Google site in the old “classic” format, you can update it to the new style. Watch the following video to learn how to do that.
(Embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIDpkzWmKb0 (/ embed)