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https://anchor.fm/hitechpod/embed/episodes/10--Interactive-Syllabus--Google-CMS-evgrcu
Google CMSThis one is not just the idea of a single app. A CMS is a Content Management System. This concept is popular in Online Education because it allows instructional designers, faculty, and other support personnel to work on the curriculum of a course without having to be in a live course in a Learning Management System (i.e. Canvas or Moodle). In this episode, we detailed how we have seen and can imagine Google's suite of education tools (Drive, Docs, Slides, et al.) being used to manage your own curriculum. Many institutions have a CMS, so this might not be a worry for you.
However, we suggest using Google as a CMS because it is very easy to manage your content and you can do so for free!
Well, in short, a CMS is used to create and control your content. The idea might be that if you make a lesson page, let's say Lesson 1 - Overview for instance, that you might want to use that same content in all three of your English 101 courses. In an LMS, you would have to copy and paste that content into each of your three sections, and then if you needed to edit anything you would have to manually edit it in all three places. Using Google Docs, however, you could make one Lesson 1 - Overview Doc and then link or embed that Doc in all three of your sections.
If you need to edit the instructions, you simply edit the Doc in Google Drive and, voila, it is updated in all three of your sections!
If you don't already have one, sign up for a Google account! You can do this at google.com, gmail.com, or even drive.google.com. If you make an account for Google, you get Drive, YouTube, Mail, Calendar, and so much more. Once your account is set, you need to get familiar with creating Docs, Slides, and any other assets you might need. Check out this Google support page with searchable and indexed resources.
If you're more into video support, this YouTube video is great: it walks you through a lot of details about everything Google Drive.
Lastly, and maybe even most importantly, you want to learn how to embed Google Docs and Slides. Embedding may seem intimidating, but it's as simple as copy and pasting the correct link. The thing we can't account for is the system you're trying to embed inside of. If you use Canvas, Schoology, WordPress, or other tools it can look a bit different, but once you get down the basics you won't have anything to worry about.