Google Docs/Forms for Teachers

In my Google Tools for Educators (Baker University) class, I learned how to use the neatest tool that is extremely useful for us as teachers (and many other people, as well!) 

Google Docs: Forms:  What are they?

Forms are a tool of Google Docs and are super easy to create. You can embed forms on Web pages or on your blog, or you can send the link out in an email. It looks very professional and is easy to use.



Forms feed their results directly into a spreadsheet in Google Docs. That means you can take the results and publish them, use spreadsheet gadgets or charts with them, or export the results to use in Excel or another desktop spreadsheet program.



I chose to do my Google Doc Form Survey as a Holidays Questionairre to ensure that I am being culturally sensitive to all students in my classroom as the holidays roll around.  I sent this form out as an e mail with a message attached, explaining it's purpose.  Check it out! :

Click here to see my survey

Want to know how to make one? Simple!

You can read my tutorial, or go to the Youtube tutorial for my fellow visual learners :) Click here to see YouTube tutorial

First, make sure you have a google account (free) by going to www.google.com

Log into Google Docs and select New: Form from the upper left menu.

Give your new form a name and start adding questions. You can choose as many or as few questions as you'd like in your survey, and you can switch question types later. Each answer will be a new column in your spreadsheet.


The button for adding new questions is on the upper left corner.

Choose from a list questions let you create a drop down box with a list of choices. Users can only select one choice from the list.



As with all questions on a form, there is a check box if you want to require everyone to answer this question. Otherwise they can just skip it and move on.



For most form questions, you can just start typing your questions in the blank and a new blank will appear. The blank box at the bottom of the list is slightly transparent to show you that it's not visible.


As soon as you click on a blank, it becomes visible in your form. If you make a mistake and end up with too many blanks, click on the X to the right of the blank to delete it.
 
When you're done adding questions, you can save your form. Google will automatically save your doc as you go along.



Now you can choose how you'd like to share your form. You can share the form in one of three ways:

• linking
• embedding
• emailing (I did e maiL)

The URL for your form is on the bottom of the page, and you can use this for linking to the form. You can get the code to embed your form into a Web page by clicking on the More actions button on the top right of the screen. Clicking the Email this form button lets you enter a list of email addresses to send the form.


As soon as you're done and your form has been saved, you can go ahead and close the window.  Your form will feed into Google as a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is private by default, even though your form is public (which is nice, because then parents aren't able to see how others answered).



If you wish, you can share the spreadsheet with others or publish it, but the choice is yours. You can also go in and manually add data to your spreadsheet without having to rely on the form or use the data to make charts.


You can even make a chart that is public while leaving the spreadsheet itself private. This way you could graph the results of your survey or show a map of where respondents are located without having to show everyone the raw data.

And that's it! Ta-da! Sounds trickier than it is.  If I can do, it you can do it. 

 
Useful Links/Resources to help you get started:


Link straight to Google Forms
List of uses for educators
10 Google Forms for the Classroom   (my favorite- check this out!)