Nancy and I went to an excellent seminar called Google Forms and Scripts for Beginners, https://sites.google.com/site/formsandscriptsshawgorman/home, by Kristi Shaw and Sue Gorman. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was going to learn that much as I use forms on a regular basis as a really easy way to formatively pre- and post- assess students and run Flubaroo to give them feedback right away. However, I want to share some some really interesting things that I learned. I have been using forms mainly at the substitution level of SAMR and dreaded having to use open ended responses using forms because they were so difficult to read on a spreadsheet form. But, not any more…..
For example: If you ask your students to analyze, reflect, synthesize etc. that requires them to write usually more than a sentence or two. To read the large responses you had to change your margins, wrap your text, and switch to print view and even then it was still hard to read! This was often frustrating and time consuming to grade especially if you had students who wrote a lot. If this is you, this add-on is going to rock your world. The add-on “Save as doc” converts the whole spreadsheet or part of the spreadsheet into an easily readable google doc. If you use Flubaroo to grade your forms, you can also convert a Flubaroo spreadsheet to a Google.doc.
How do I convert my spreadsheets to an easily readable Google.doc?
First, open in spreadsheet view but not your form. Go to add-on on the toolbar-->get add ons-->choose “Save as doc” (Once you do this, you won’t have to do this every time). Now, that you have it added, highlight the cells in your spreadsheet you want converted to a Google doc and go back to add-on and choose “save as doc” and start. It is magical! Try it!
Some other add-ons you might want to try are:
Form Ranger - pulls in info from another sheet.
Form Limiter - keeps your form open only for a certain amount of time.
Doc Appendage - will share info in the doc with others
Flubaroo - Grades assessments and emails feedback back to student
Form notification - on your form will let you know if students add something after you’ve have looked at it by sending you an email
Ideas to transform your forms beyond substitution level and use it as a personalized learning tool
You can use forms to reteach by forwarding them a specific page to a specific video or how to explanation. For example, if Johnny gets the first question wrong and Susie gets it right. Susie moves on to the next question. However, Johnny gets redirected to another page where you can embed a “how to” video or passage in a book to reteach what Johnny needs help on and then Johnny is given another chance at the question.
Ideas where google forms can be useful in the classroom
- Embed video into the form have students watch and answer questions on a form.
- Check in/Exit slip
- Slip in academic vocabulary - word of the day.
Are you using the same boring theme?
If you are bored by the standard themes available, this is for you. There are some fun animated and seasonal forms. To change your theme: open your form then choose “change theme” on the toolbar. Click the top of the page on your form and check it out!
Next you will see on the right the option to customize your form, choose “customize”
If you would like to change your headers, choose “header” and “choose image”
Another Google tool you might be interested in is research. On slides or docs, go to tools→ research, and you can click and drag items from there. It will even let you or you students choose from licensed material or not licensed and create citations in APA MLA format.
Stop by room 815 and see me if you need any help.
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