Google+Sites+-+Beginning+Research

It is time to take what we learned about Google Documents and send it out to a new place – Google Sites! It’s a simple website-making place that works well with Google Documents (including spreadsheets, forms, etc.), Blogger, etc. There are widgets you can incorporate, pages you can use, and tons of features and options. If you’re interested, here is an example of what a Google Site can look like.

But before you can build a website, you need to have a topic. For this project, you are going to be creating a website based on an area. You can pick a state or a section of a different country (not a city or an entire country – a province or something related to that like Ontario). You cannot have the same state/province/etc. as someone else! When you have decided what you would like, ask me to approve it before you do anything else.

After approval, it is time to plan out your website. In the example website above, there is a home page, several levels under the main page, and then a few other pages that branch off of those levels. Open a Google Document and name it “Research of ” (your chosen topic). Share the document with me by typing my email address (aivie@splhs.org) in the sharing box.

In your document, create a list of pages that you want. You need to have at least 6 pages, and 3 are required. The required pages are: a Main page, a Bibliography page, and a quiz page where visitors to your site can take a quiz on all of the information that you have on your website. A //sample// list could look like this, but if you would like to have different pages that is fine too:
 * Main page (REQUIRED)
 * Land & Climate
 * Agriculture
 * Business & Industry
 * Fun Facts
 * Bibliography (REQUIRED)
 * Take the Quiz! (REQUIRED)

When you have created a topics list like the one above, you know what you can research. Copy each link that you use and save it in your document, because you will need to properly cite your sources on your bibliography page.  ** Before you start researching, ** you should check out a couple of links about doing basic searches. This first link talks about basic search help. It will help you find concepts and be more precise in what you search. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #2d4567; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This link will take you to a page that teaches you how to modify your search and gain more control over what results pop up in your search.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">Be careful in your searching. For example, searching for "new york state" brings up this list of results. Searching for "information about new york" brings a very different set of results. Look for websites that end in .gov or .org - these sites should be more trustworthy and are more likely to be run by a company, rather than just one person. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">** Requirements of your website: **
 * 1) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">At least 6 pages on your site
 * 2) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">You use at least 3 different credible sources (Wikipedia should not be your only source or option!)
 * 3) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">You have at least two solid paragraphs for every page on your website that have not been copied straight from another website. The information should be in your own words!
 * 4) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">Each page has at least one different picture on it that fits with the theme of the page (the pictures will need to be cited as well, so save links!)
 * 5) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">You need to start thinking about and taking notes on what possible questions you could ask for your quiz page. (For example, if you were asking a question about what the capital of Missouri is, you could ask the question, then have options for Columbia, Jefferson City, Kansas City and St. Louis)

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">After you finish all of your research, we will start putting together your Google Site!