Great Google's Forms!

Google Drive certainly trumps Microsoft’s Sky Drive by including the Google Forms option! It’s simple to create a form and then send it via email or share its URL or embed it (as I did with my blog user survey). In addition to collecting responses in a spreadsheet, Google provides a graphic summary of responses.

Google Forms offer several answer options, including: checkboxes, grid, drop-down lists, multiple choice, scale, and, even paragraph text. The form can have section headers in a larger font to make it easier to read and allows for the inclusion of a descriptor as well. For longer forms, page breaks can be inserted. In addition, you can edit the confirmation message people will see after completing their responses. In addition, there are numerous template designs available to customize your form’s look!

Google Forms have a vast array of application possibilities. You can use this tool to plan events, create a survey or give a quiz. More ways in which people are using forms include: registration and/or reservation forms for events, volunteer sign-up, event/course evaluations or satisfaction surveys, customer testimonials, placing orders, or collecting contact information. Teachers seem particularly taken with Google Forms and are enthusiastically touting this tool for things like: creating self-assessments, tests or quizzes, a mechanism for obtaining peer feedback, creating rubrics, building timelines to the more esoteric like teaching questionnaire design, project management and website evaluation (which was the way I tried to use my Google form).

Works Consulted:

Barrett, Tom. "80+ Google Forms for the Classroom." EdTech. N.p., 23 Aug. 2008. Web. 20 Nov. 2012. <http://edte.ch/blog/2008/08/23/10-google-forms-for-the-classroom/>.

-----. "85 Interesting Ways to Use Google Forms in the Classroom ." N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2012. <https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AclS3lrlFkCIZGhuMnZjdjVfNzc5Y25zc201Zzc>.

"Create, Send, Share, and Edit a Form ." Google Drive. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2012. <http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=87809>.

Eaton, Sarah E. "How to Use Google Forms: A Step-by-Step Guide." Feb. 2011. Web. 21 Nov. 2012. <http://larc.sdsu.edu/sm-workshop11/Exceptional_Webinars_-_Using_Google_Forms.pdf>. I also recommend her 60-minute step-by-step webinar recording: <https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2011-02-22.0803.D.40F698971780B7AEE5FAD85F5E2D6D.vcr&sid=lcevents>