If you have a class website, and I hope you do, it is important to give users reasons to go to your site. If you created your website at a PD workshop and it contains your syllabus and maybe a blurb about your class there is no reason for your students or parents to continue to come back to your site. When you post new resources or announcements on the website very few people will see it.

Dynamic Homepage

Your website needs to be living. Regularly updated and contain new information. If a parent or student goes to your site a second time and sees the same content they will be less likely to return for a 3rd time. Each time a visitor goes to your class page you want them to see something new.

Google Slides

One tip for keeping your homepage alive is to embed a Google Slides presentation. You can publish the presentation and set it to automatically rotate through the slides.

The Trick

The easiest way to keep your homepage updated daily is not not edit the homepage, but to edit the Google presentation. The slideshow automatically updates when you make changes.

Publish to the Web

After making a Google presentation, use the File menu to “Publish to the web.” This will create a link or embed code to show the presentation in a published version rather than being able to see the editing options.

Start publishing.

Edit the Settings

After you started publishing you will see a link and an embed code. Before you copy those links you first want to select the checkboxes at the bottom.

Underneath the words “Automatically advance” is a checkbox for “Start slideshow as soon as the player loads” and “Restart slideshow after the last slide.”

Copy the Embed Code

The embed code starts with You want to copy this code.

Embed

Most webpages allow you to edit the HTML source. Different platforms have a different icon to allow you to switch to the source code so you can paste the embed code. While editing the page you will want to look for something that says “HTML” or “Source” or perhaps “< >.”

Google Sites has the word “HTML” in the toolbar to toggle to the code.

WordPress blogs allow you to toggle from “Visual” to “Text.”

You need to paste the embed code from the presentation into your platform, but this is only a one time process. After embedding the presentation, simply update the presentation and your website is automatically updated.