How to Add an Announcement Banner to Google Sites

The "new version" of Google Sites that was released in 2016 is finally the only version that is available. And now Google seems intent on making Sites competitive with some of the more popular DIY website builders. To that end, a lot of handy little features have been added to Google Sites over the last eighteen months. One of those features is the ability to add a sticky announcement banner at the top of the pages in your Google Site. 

An announcement banner offers a good way to draw attention to something important that you don't want your students or their parents to miss when they visit your Google Site. This could be a reminder to return some paperwork, a reminder about an upcoming test, or anything else that you want to make sure they see when they visit your site. You can have an announcement banner appear on every page on your Google Site or on just the homepage of your site. In the following video I demonstrate how to add an announcement banner to your Google Site. 

Whiteboards, Drawings, and New Snow - The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where fluffy snow is falling from the sky in the early morning hours. My kids will be excited to see it when they wake up. My oldest will want to ski on the new snow and my youngest will want to eat the snow. 

This week I took a break from writing new blog posts and republished some of the most popular posts of the year. During the week I took some time to play outside with my kids and on my own day when I headed up to my favorite mountain, Saddleback. I feel recharged and ready for school to start again next week. I hope this week treated you well too. 

These were the most popular posts of the week:
1. Five Ways to Make Whiteboard Instructional Videos in Your Web Browser
2. Draw on Your Screen in Google Meet
3. Rubrics for Assessing Videos, Podcasts, Blogs, and More
4. Five Easy Ways to Improve Your Videos
5. A Few Interesting Ways to Use Google Slides Besides Making Presentations 

6. 5 Google Classroom Tips You Might Have Overlooked or Forgotten
7. How to Make Digital Bookshelves in Google Slides

Professional Development Opportunities 

Through Practical Ed Tech I'm currently offering two on-demand learning opportunities:

• A Crash Course in Making & Teaching With Video. 
• Ten Search Strategies Students Need to Know
• New courses coming soon!
• Custom online PD for your school. Contact me to learn more. 

Thank you for your support! 

• More than 300 of you have participated in a Practical Ed Tech course in 2020. Those registrations help keep Free Technology for Teachers and Practical Ed Tech going. I couldn't do it without you!
• Pixton EDU is a great tool for creating comics and storyboards. 
• Wakelet is a great tool for making collections of resources, recording video, and more!

Other Places to Follow Me:

• The Practical Ed Tech Newsletter comes out every Sunday evening/ Monday morning. It features my favorite tip of the week and the week's most popular posts from Free Technology for Teachers.
• My YouTube channel has more than 32,000 subscribers watching my short tutorial videos on a wide array of edtech tools. 
• I've been Tweeting as @rmbyrne for thirteen years. 
• The Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page features new and old posts from this blog throughout the week. 
• And if you're curious about my life outside of education, you can follow me on Instagram or Strava.