For nearly five years now Google has been saying that the old, "classic" version of Google Sites would be closing "soon." It appears that they really mean it this time. In an email to Google Workspaces domain administrators and in this blog post, Google has announced that on May 15th the ability to create new websites using the old version of Google Sites will be removed. Then on December 1st editing of sites made with the classic version of Google Sites will be disabled. And on January 1, 2022 all sites made with the classic version of Google Sites will be offline. 

Transition from Classic Google Sites to Current Google Sites

People who are still using the classic version of Google Sites can transition to the current version of Google Sites by following the directions in this video. It should be noted that not all features found in the classic version of Google Sites are available in the current version of Google Sites. 

Create a Website with Google Sites

The current version of Google Sites is easier to use and more aesthetically pleasing than the classic version. And there are some helpful features in the current version that were not available in the classic version. Those features include automatic resizing for mobile devices, drag-and-drop positioning of page elements, and page-level display settings. Watch this video to learn how to make your first website with Google Sites. 

Like many of my students, I'm often guilty of writing in a rush. Doing that leads to three bad habits that appear in my writing. The first is omitting words that should be in a sentence. The second is repeating words in a sentence when I try to revise a sentence midstream. And the third bad habit is using the same phrases and sentence structures too frequently. To change my habits I'm trying to slow down. I've also enlisted the help of a neat Chrome extension called Wordtune. 

Extension I'm Currently Using - Wordtune

I featured Wordtune in a video and blog post a couple of months ago. The short summary of it is that when you have Wordtune installed you can simply highlight a sentence in Google Docs, Gmail, or Outlook and it will suggest changes to your sentences. The suggestions will include corrections to grammar and spelling. Wordtune's suggestions also include changes to your phrasing and word choices. Here's my short video overview of Wordtune. 

Analyze My Writing provides a break-down of the readability of your writing on five indices. The analysis includes listings of the most common words and most common word pairs in your writing. A listing of how frequently you use punctuation and punctuation types is included in the analysis provided by Analyze My Writing. Finally, a word cloud is included at the end of the analysis of your writing.

Hemingway App provides students with lots of helpful information about their text. To use the service students just paste some text into the Hemingway editor and it will provide you with a bunch of information about that text. Hemingway highlights the parts of your writing that use passive voice, adverbs, and overly complex sentences. All of those factors are accounted for in generating a general readability score for your passage. Here’s a little video overview of Hemingway App.

Slick Write is a service that students can use to help them analyze their own writing and or that of other writers. Slick Write identifies typical things like word counts, readability, and an estimated reading time for a document. Slick Write will also analyze use of adverbs and prepositional phrases throughout a document. Users can pick and choose what they want Slick Write to identify in a passage.