On Using Google Forms

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The Reading Teacher Vol. 66 Issue 8 pp. 625–630 DOI:10.1002/TRTR.1169 © 2013 International Reading Association R T

ON USING GOOGLE FOR MS

Marla Mallette ■ Diane Barone

By Educators, For Educators represents

the collaborative work of educators who

graciously share techniques for transforming

teaching and learning with technology.

Tom Barrett has served as a curator of these ideas

by bringing them together in the Interesting Ways

series found at edte.ch/blog/interesting-ways/. The

Interesting Ways series is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike

3.0 License, which allows collaborators to share the

work as well as add ideas. The topics (e.g., tools,

devices, subjects, and gaming) continue to grow

and new ideas are continually added. We realize,

however, that as an open source, collaborative space,

some ideas inevitably will be more useful than others.

From the large and growing collection of 85

Interesting Ways (and tips) to use Google Forms

(ow.ly/htw9j), we searched for ideas that focused

on literacy, communication, and professional

development. Although representing just a small

set of these ideas, we selected 10 interesting ways

of using Google Forms to highlight in this column.

Each interesting way is identified by its original

slide number, title, and the author’s name, or Twitter

screen name.

In keeping with our goal to maintain the

authenticity of the Interesting Ways series, the

descriptions include the text and writing style of the

authors, with only slight modifications to fit with

The Reading Teacher readership. Just in case you’re

wondering: Google Forms is a free and easy web-

based application for collecting information through

online surveys and forms. Responses are sent directly

to a spreadsheet, which is set up for easy analysis,

and automatically saved and stored on your Google

drive (for more information, see ow.ly/htwSY).

Slide # 64—Library Book Check Out by @mccoymee

Allows me to keep track of the books that my

students are reading—Also allows me to create

groups of students who have read the same books so

they can talk as a book club. It works great!

Slide #16—Online Reading Records by @OhLottie

I certainly didn’t invent this idea, but had heard about

others doing it! I created a simple form containing the

same headings that the paper reading record all chil-

dren in my class have:

ON USI NG GOOGLE FOR MS

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■ Name

■ Title

■ Author

■ Type of book

■ Pages read

■ Comments

■ Parent/caregiver comments

A sample reading list form can be found here: ow.ly/htxeD.

Slide #79—Reading Journals by Janet | expateducator.com

Reading logs can be done using Google

Spreadsheets. Each student has his or

her own sheet that is locked so that only

the teacher and individual student can

modify. However, students can see what

other students are reading.

Slide #29—Collaborating on Definitions by @lrogalsky @mrhmiddleschool

Step One: Students use their own resources (web, book,

brain) to look up a definition of a new vocabulary term.

They submit their definition into a Google Form while

the corresponding spreadsheet is displayed so all can see

the work of their peers.

Step Two: As a class, review the submitted definitions

and come up with a thorough and common language.


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Slide #32—Student Notes by @kconners09

■ As students are presenting ideas, watching videos, or collaborating, they record notes.

■ Together they create one chart of essential ideas, and at the end, students have all contributed.

■ Great for shy students.

■ Or students can research together and take notes together.

■ It’s great because they edit each other’s spelling, update notes, and love collaborating. Then they have a study guide that

they have created.

Slide #74—Playing Jeopardy With a Survey Form as the “Buzzer” by Dotty Clark

I create questions on the unit I am

teaching. I project these questions

using the presentation document (one

question per slide). Then, I create a form

where they have to submit the answer

to each question. Here are links to the

form I created: Survey (ow.ly/htyG0) /

Spreadsheet (ow.ly/htyPF). First, I show

the question and my students answer

the question on the form. Then, I display

the spreadsheet from the form showing

who answered the question first. I check

for spelling and proper typing.


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I keep going back and forth between each question and the spreadsheet of answers. It’s equivalent to the Google Form being the

“buzzer” for who answered first.

Slide #14—Get Feedback From Parents by @MrsThorne

Because you don’t need a login to complete a Google Form, it is the perfect way to gather insight and opinions from parents,

encouraging a better dialogue between home and school.


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Slide #80—As a Classroom Voting/Clicker System by @mhawksey

A single reusable Google Form for

students to enter multiple choice

question–based responses. The teacher

asks the students to go to the form

(bookmarked previously) and answer A,

B, C...

The teacher can then select the question

by a unique identifier and quickly

display a response graph.

Template and More Information can be found here: ow.ly/htzd4

Slide #6—Stimulating a Staff Meeting Debate by @simoncrook

Using a simple form with a few quick questions, you can gather data immediately (yet anonymously), allowing the whole staff to

view the profile of opinions and take ownership of any de cisions made. This has proved quite empowering to quieter members of

staff and allowed for difficult questions to be responded to and reflected on.


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Teacher Survey can be found here: ow.ly/htzs6

Survey Form can be found here: ow.ly/htzzE

Interesting Ways: Feedback on Google Forms

Our final Interesting Way is not from the series; rather, it is a form we created as a means for putting into practice the ideas

described in this column. In creating the form, we followed the following steps:

■ Browse form templates to find an existing form, which saves time in development

■ Save a copy of the template

■ Modify the questions

■ Distribute

The purpose of the form we created is to gather feedback on the ideas from this column. We hope you will share your thoughts by

completing the Feedback on Google Forms short survey found here: ow.ly/htA2d.

For more ideas on using Google Forms in the classroom, visit EDTECH (edte.ch/blog/interesting-ways). If you have found

success with Google Forms in your own classroom, we encourage you to add your ideas by tweeting @tombarrett.

Documents

On Using Google Forms