Google Forms - El Dorado of surveys Google really has spoiled me as an educator. I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to have been a teacher when I was a middle school student. Google is completely free, allows for paperless resource sharing in an instant, allows for collaboration with a built in participation record, the list goes on and on. Even just the ability to get a new resource to my students during class time, no TA or copy machine needed is incredible. One of the incredible, free, and educationally revolutionary Apps is Google Forms. It is a resource I do not use as much as the “flagship” Apps like Drive, Docs, and Slides, but still one that adds a ton of value to my classroom. I can use it to easily and quickly compile student information from a student friendly survey into a Google sheet (no more parent info forms on paper at open house!). I can use it for quick exit tickets, for project feedback, or even as a content assessment (with the help of add-ons like Doctopous or Goobric). They are faster to make than designing a reflection form or survey in a word processor and the responses are easier to organize. The only real drawback in that it does not connect automatically to my gradebook in my school’s Learning Management System. I can restrict access to accounts on my network only, allow multiple submissions, or password protect my Form with the right Add-ons. I can encrypt the results in a Google Sheet if needed (and this was incredibly useful during my action research). Really, it is a user friendly tool and that can create valuable content in a matter of minutes. I probably don’t use it as often as I should. In the future in my practice, I might like to incorporate more content assessments. With the right add-ons, I can easily share the results from assessments with students and parents. The amount of feedback I can quickly give out is incredible. We have also begun implementing home cooked PrBL units in my district. I can continue to use Forms to get feedback from students on how those units can be improved in terms of clarity or engagement. I have even had students design their own surveys to gather data from their peers, to create authentic statistics problems. I could take that even further. Forms could be used for peer evaluation, for finding peer tutors, all sorts of potential applications. My options are only limited by my creativity (or ability to look up what others have created). In terms of my research, if I had to do it again, I would use forms even more if it were possible. I had to be offline for much of my action research due to state testing. It would have been so much faster and easier to use forms than to do all my analysis by hand on all the paper copies. Maybe this is the millennial in my talking, but I can mark things so much fast on a computer in the right programs! Moving forward with my capstone product, I feel like I can use Google Forms in many ways. I can use it to build a differentiated mailing list (if I want to go in that direction) or as a way to submit questions or comments directly to me. I can use it to get feedback on specific parts of my website, perhaps by linking a form after articles or blog posts. Like in the classroom, the possibilities are endless. When you add in the organizational and productivity add ons, like Autocrat, you get even more value. What really sticks out to me about Forms that puts it well above other surveying resources is how interconnected it is to the rest of the Google Apps. I can export to spreadsheets, have charts automatically made, have responses put into premade Google Doc templates, use add ons to mass e-mail based on responses. It even goes beyond Google. Google Forms connects to Google Sheets which is used by infographic design websites to quickly create graphics. I feel like the real treasure of Google is its interconnectedness.
2 Comments
7/2/2017 09:35:29 pm
Hi Patrick,
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Nancy
7/3/2017 01:18:39 pm
Hi Patrick,
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