Google Forms Bonanza!

     This might have been my favorite week in 702.  Google Forms! I have been really excited to see if I can harness the power of Google Forms.  This week, I feel like I have barely scratched the surface. I initially considered myself to be beginner/intermediate, and quickly realized that I’m totally a beginner after all the readings this week.  In fact, I hadn’t even realized that add-ons even existed for Google Forms!
     Last semester, I created a Google Form for parents to use as a daily log for when they spent time with their child on a specific academic activity.  While I thought that I had created response choices that would yield clear quantitative data that would be easy to analyze--I didn’t. Once I had all of the data in front of me, I realized that I had to change my plan for analyzing the data.  I learned my lesson about carefully thinking through every step in the creation of a form.
     The great thing about this week’s homework is that I was able to use the resources in the iCare to create Google Docs that would solve a few problems in three different areas just in time:  my action research, Touro collaboration work, and my work as a site academic specialist.

     For my next cycle of action research, I’ve been thinking about using gamification of letter/sound learning as a way for older siblings to be tutors to their kindergarten brothers/sisters.  I will make a variety of printable alphabet games and teach our 3-5 grade students how to play with their younger siblings to help them learn alphabet letters and sounds. I will need a way to keep track of these printable games, and used the CheckItOut Add-on to create this Alphabet Game Check In/Check Out Form.  Now I will be able to rotate the games easily by being able to see who has already had certain games and which ones they haven't checked out yet.

     While I was creating the Check In/Check Out form for my alphabet games, I was trying to use the Remind App to text my classmates (Julie, Jennifer, and Natasha) about finding a time to meet regarding our upcoming group assignment.  I realized that polling people about when they are available for group meetings is something I often need to do. So I created a Google Form called “Group Assignment Initial Meeting” and sent the link to my group members on Remind! I used checklists to offer days and times to meet, and the form showed me the most popular responses.  They filled it out and within 5-10 minutes, we knew when we were all available to meet. Since I might want to use parts of this form again, I got the add-on called “FormRecycler.” This add-on allows you to take specific questions from different forms you’ve used and recycle them onto a new form, rather than having to copy the entire form again.  Nice!

     Finally, I considered my upcoming focus at school: CAASPP prep.  At our staff meeting, my principal and I would like to create a brainstorm of ideas from teachers about how they prepare their students for CAASPP in advance, and on the day of testing.  We also want to gather any online resources they might use so that it can be shared and other teachers can benefit. Matt Miller suggested the use of Google Forms as a way for staff to share ideas about PD, so I applied this topic and created “Staff Share: Test Prep Ideas and Resources.”  I think we will get more input using this form, versus the usual “please add to this Google Doc if you have any ideas…” I really wanted to find an add-on that would populate the responses onto separate Google Docs for each question, but DocAppender makes you use checkbox responses, while I wanted paragraph responses.  Anybody know of another way to try?