Google Forms 2016
Google Forms is one of those technologies with a real ‘wow’ factor, and I have written about it before in Webwatcher. However, there have been some big modifications recently – and new features are always a game changer for teachers and students. For example, the new version includes self-checking quizzes, which can be extremely useful for doing formative feedback with your students.
What is Google Forms?
Google Forms allows you to produce online surveys and questionnaires very quickly. Once you have written the questions, you click on a ‘Send’ button and the software generates a link to the questionnaire which you can share with your students, fellow teachers or whoever. They just click on the link and fill in the questionnaire. The great thing is that all their answers are automatically collated and, at the click of a button, you can see all the answers, nicely organised into graphs and tables. One good thing about Google Forms is that you can include pictures and even video along with the questions, so the questionnaires can be quite media rich, too. This is an example of where using technology clearly offers greater opportunities than the paper alternative: easy production, easy distribution, easy collation of data, and a variety of media.
What can Google Forms do?
I use this technology a lot. For example, whenever I am running a teacher training course, I send out a questionnaire to the teachers in advance so that I can gather information about their use of technology and what they are hoping to learn. I also use it for feedback at the end of my courses. Not only that, but each year I use Google Forms to survey all the teachers who use my website. I also have an ongoing questionnaire on my newsletter, which gets filled in by hundreds of teachers; I open this up and look at the responses every day. In the past, when I have taught language courses, I have used it for learning about the students at the start of the course, for gathering feedback during it and even for action research when testing out new ideas. In fact, since the tool is free, you can even get the students to make their own surveys and questionnaires, and I have done that too.
What are the new features?
The new version of Google Forms has a more intuitive format, which looks less ‘busy’ and is easier to use. You can now produce quizzes that are automatically corrected, so it is great for formative checks and tests. You need a Google account to make use of Google Forms. You then go to your Google Drive and click on ‘New’. This provides you with a drop-down list of tools. First click on ‘More’ and then choose ‘Google Forms’. There is one key thing to remember with the new version, and that is to click on ‘Settings’ (the cog to the right) and then select ‘Quizzes’. Within ‘Quizzes’, there are a number of options to choose from. My recommendation is to opt to release the marks immediately (though I would only do this for formative work, not high-stakes assessments) and I would also uncheck ‘Correct answers’ so that the students aren’t shown the correct answers and can re-do the quiz if they want to.
Simply click on the ‘Save’ button and you will be ready to start creating a quiz. First, click and add a title to your quiz and then type in a brief description below. Now click on the + sign on the right, and you can add your first question. You can change the question type easily by clicking on the drop-down menu to the right. A whole range of question types is available, but remember: only questions with a clear answer work with the quiz feature. The software cannot mark long pieces of student-created text or paragraph-type questions. Now type in your question and, for multiple-choice questions, add your options.
You need to click on ‘Add option’ to add more options. Now the big difference with the new version is that you will need to add your answers, too. Click on ‘Answer Key’ and click on the option that is the correct answer. You also need to allocate the points for the question. You also have the option of providing feedback by clicking on ‘Add Answer Feedback’. You can add in feedback for the correct and incorrect answers. That is it; your first question is ready.
Don’t forget you can also add video or images, so the quiz can be used for comprehension work. If you do use videos and images, make sure you have clear instructions. I tend to add the videos below the question and so in the question I write ‘Watch the video below and answer the following question’. It does take a bit of getting used to, in terms of formatting and organising the questions.
One thing about Google Forms is that when you start to use it a lot and get confident with it, you realise it is actually very flexible. For example, I use the ‘Title and Description’ button to add text that I want my students or teachers to read. You can also add links into the descriptions and questions, so you can get your students to access anything from the internet, too. Once you are confident with the basics, you can be pretty creative with your surveys and quizzes.
Remember, too, that your students can make their own quizzes and questionnaires. I really like this, as it means that not only will the students be processing a lot of English, they will also be learning to use a technology that is widely used in industry
Help video
Here is some help to get you started. The first set of videos shows you how to use Google Forms in general, and the second looks specifically at Google Quizzes.
How to use Google Forms: www.teachertrainingvideos.com/microsoft-google-prezi/google-forms.html
How to make Google Quizzes: www.teachertrainingvideos.com/microsoft-google-prezi/google-quizzes.html
