25 Ways to Use Google Forms

I thought it felt appropriate to add a Google Form to this blog so you can give me your honest feedback on how I am doing with this.  Feel free to be as honest as possible, I tried to give you lots of options to choose from.

Originally when I was going to write about Google Forms I thought I would be writing about how to create a Google Form.  If I wrote out in sentences how to create a Google Form we would be here for quite a while.  Instead I am going to provide some links of information on that.

This document was one I created and handed out at my times before and after school when I went over Google Forms.  It goes over some of the basics.

This website gives some basic directions on how to make a Google Form using some pictures and it gives a little video at the end as well.

This video also ran through some of the ways to make a video.

One of the most amazing things about Google Forms is the fact that it makes graphs of responses.  As long as the questions are multiple choice, check boxes, lists, or other ones where you give them the choices up front, you will get great graphs showing you responses.  You can find it when you open a Google From by going to Form and clicking Show Summary of Responses.

Now that you have had a chance to see some of the ways to make a Google Form, I would rather take the time to write about all the ways that you could use Google Forms.  When I met with people, this was what people were really looking for.

So here we go with 25 ways to use Google Forms:
1. A survey - listing all the kinds of surveys would fill up this whole list, but anytime you want to get the opinions of your students you can create a quick form with all your questions.

2. Collect demographic data - Put all the information you want to learn about a student (name, address, phone number, etc) and have the student go online to fill it out.  You have a quick spreadsheet with demographic information.

3.  Quiz - Create a quiz on there, with all the choices you have multiple options of questions.  Then you have a spreadsheet you can use to quickly scan for wrong answers.  If you are good with mail merges you can merge it into Word for a printout for students.

4. Order Form - Put all your collection criteria for ordering something and have people fill it out.  (This however won't collect any money.  You would have to do that yourself)

5. Classroom Observations - Want to make a quick way to make a classroom observation.  Make a question for each criteria and save the live form to your Internet bookmarks.  Go there every time you want to make an observation and you will have a continual spreadsheet of all observations.

6. Student Observations - Need to make observations on specific students, create one with that criteria and easily go back to mark that information on them.

7. Behavior sheets - If you have students that have behavior sheets, make a form with all the criteria and teachers can fill out that behavior sheet whether or not the student remembers it.  It then creates a spreadsheet for you to keep track.

8. Student Feedback/Satisfaction - Anytime you want feedback on an activity, lesson, paper, etc. you could create a form and students could give you anonymous feedback.

9. Parent Feedback/Satisfaction - The same would go for if you are sharing this with parents.  You can get feedback from them with certain questions.  I even saw an example of using a Google Form to collect parent input responses at IEP meetings. Example

10. Inventory - With a few criteria setup it is really easy to make a page to quickly write down a new item to the inventory and then you can organize the inventory with the spreadsheet that it creates.

11. Book checkout - I used this one in my classroom.  I created a page where students had to put in their name, the book they were checking out and returning and whether it was checked out or returned.  You could put in a list of kids ahead of time to choose from if you have a small class.  I also had a list of 15 Teen Award books that were checked out a lot so that list was made as well.  You could write down every book you have, but if you have 100-200 books or more that list can get really long for a student to find what they need.  I could then check the spreadsheet and see who had what and when they returned it. Example

12. Choosing groups/activities - If you offer students a choice of activities you could have them fill out a form to keep a list of what their choices are.  This would work out really well they had to give you a list of choices and you had to pick one.  you would have a spreadsheet with all their choices and it would allow you to look at it better to pick.

13. Lab Data Collection - Doing a science experiment with specific pieces of data that they are collection?  Well put all the criteria a Google Form and the students have one spot to put data.  Then you have a large collection of data from the experiment.  Example

14. Spelling Test - Online place for students to go, type in their name and you can verbally give spelling words while they type.  You might have to be a little cautious with this one as it is possible the web browser may mark a word incorrect.  Either way afterwards you will have a quick spreadsheet that you can check for correct answers.

15. Reading Records - How many kids have lost a paper reading record?  Have a site they can go to and put in their name and their reading times.  Then it will never get lost.  You could create a lot of forms (one for each kid), or make one form and you can sort by the student's name to keep them all together.

16. Self-Assessments - After a test/paper/activity you might give a self-assessment to the students.  They can always respond in a form and you are left with a collection of responses.

17. Question Center - Did you ever have a bowl or a place where students could always put questions and you could pull them out to answer?  Well create a Google Form and they'll always have a place to go to put in a question on something they are wondering about.

18. Feedback to Students - You could have students create their own forms to receive feedback on some project they made or paper that they may have written.  They create the questions to ask others.  Then others can come by review and provide feedback.  It could made anonymous so students may feel like they can be honest instead of telling critiques right to the student.  However you have to work with some students to make sure they don't just bash another project.

19. Grading Presentations - If you have specific criteria that you always use when grading a speech, project, or group activity (for example), you can put that into a Google Form and sit there with a computer, iPad, or other mobile device and click in the scores to the criteria or write comments.  You can pass that information on later and it can be a lot cleaner than shuffling papers around to keep track of scores.

20. Bibliography - Student could have an online form to put in information for a bibliography.  Then they would have a spreadsheet of all their information.  This may get messy as a whole class, but each student could create their own with a Google account.

21. Lesson Plans - You could choose different criteria for Grade Level, Unit, Topic, Content, Date, etc. and then as you put in any information you will have a spreadsheet of information that you can sort and share with others.

22. Volunteer Opportunities - You could create a Google Form for people to fill out information if they want to volunteer, or you could list specific jobs and people could go online and sign up for different jobs if you list them in the Google Form.

23. Book Reviews - Students can go online and give their opinions about books that they have read along with summaries, etc. The teacher can use this to grade or post elsewhere for others to see.

24. Exit tickets - A place to go online at the end of a class for students to share if they understood whatever concept you were teaching.  You could give them a problem that dealt with that day's topic, or just ask for feedback. Example

25. Creating really awesome forms to start off your blog.

I hope this gives you some jumping off point to use Google Forms in your classroom.