6 Things Every Teacher Should Be Able to Do on The New Google Forms

September 14, 2015
As you know, Google has recently revamped several of its Drive services including Google Forms. This latter has particularly been redesigned to incorporate several of the features that were missing in the old form. We have already written a step by step guide to help teachers learn more about the different functionalities offered by the new Forms. Today, we are highlighting 6 more important things every teacher should be able to do on the New Google Forms. Check them out below.

1- Create a form from a spreadsheet in Google Sheets

You can easily create a form right from Google Sheets. Here is how to do it:

• While working with a spreadsheet, click the Insert menu and Form.
• A message will display at the top of the page notifying you that a new form has been created.
• To begin editing your form, click Add questions here in the message. Or, to get rid of this message and continue editing your spreadsheet, click Dismiss.

Note: If you dismiss this message, you can edit your form at any time by selecting the Form menu and Edit form. A new form will automatically be created. A new tab will appear at the bottom of your spreadsheet labeled “Form responses,”  where all responses to your form will be added.

2- Where to store form responses

The new Google Forms allows you to choose between two destinations where you can save your form responses. These are :
A-  New spreadsheet: when you choose this option, all the responses will be stored in a new separate spreadsheets in Google Sheets.
B- Existing spreadsheet: This enables you to store form responses in the same spreadsheet you are working on.
Here is how to access these two options:

• Open the form.
• At the top, click the Responses tab
• Click the More icon .
• Select Choose a response destination.
• Choose from the following destinations
• Click Create.

3- View Your Form’s responses

There are three ways you can view your form’s responses:
A- As a summary of responses: This one provides you with quick overview of your respondents answers. Here is how to access this feature:

• Open the form.
• At the top of the form, click the Responses tab.

B- Separate spreadsheet: This one directs you to the spreadsheet where your form’s responses are stored. Here is how to access this option:

• Open the form.
• At the top of the form, click the Responses tab.
• To view the responses in a spreadsheet, click the Spreadsheet icon .

C-Download responses as CSV: Using this option will allow you to download a copy of your form’s responses where you can access more details on them. Here is how to do it:

• Open the form.
• At the top of the form, click the Responses tab.
• Click the More icon .
• Choose Download responses (.csv).

4- Limit users responses

As the owner of a form, you can control how often users submit their responses. To stop users from submitting your form more than once, you need to choose the feature below:

• Open the form.
• At the top, click the Settings icon .
• Check the box next to Can only submit 1 response.

5- Stop collecting form responses

You can easily turn off the ‘ Accepting responses’ feature so your form will no longer receive any more responses. When you activate this feature, visitors to your form will see a new message informing them that the form does not accept any more responses. Here is how to do it:

• Open the form.
• At the top, click the Responses tab.
• Toggle "Accepting responses" from On to Off.
• When you've stopped accepting responses, you will see a message in the "Responses" tab that says "Not accepting responses".

6- Prevent respondents from leaving a question blank

This feature when turned on forces users to answer the question in the form  so no chance for having blank answers when you collect responses.

Source: Google Forms Help page.

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Teacher's Guide on How to Create Forms Using The New Google Forms

September , 2015
Google Forms is a powerful tool with huge educational potential for teachers and educators. Besides being free and easy to use, Forms works across different devices and is seamlessly integrated with other Drive services such as Docs and Spreadsheets. As a teacher, you can use Forms for a variety of purposes including: planning an event, making surveys and polls, creating quizzes, collecting feedback and other information from students and many more. We have already posted a step by step guide on how to create a form from scratch but since then Google Forms has witnessed some major updates with the addition of some amazing features most important of which is the last update a few days ago. Therefore, we deemed it important to revisit this guide and update you on the different features you can use to create a form in the Google Forms.

1- Create a new form
There are two ways to access Google Forms and start creating a new form:
A: Head over to docs.google.com/forms and click on the plus button in the bottom right. A new form will automatically be opened.

B: You can also access Google Forms right from your Google Drive by clicking on New, More , Google Forms

2- Customize the look of your forms
You can customize the look of your form by adding a personal touch to it. You can do so by adding your favourite colour or theme. Here is how to do it:
Open your Form and click the color palette icon and choose a colour from the options provided there. To add a theme, click on the Image icon an add an existing theme to your form from Google Plus or upload your own image .

3- Add and edit questions to your form
Now that your form is created you can start adding a variety of questions to it by clicking on the question icon represented by the plus symbol.

Type in a title for your question and choose one of the following questions types:

• Multiple choice
• Checkbox
• Short answer
• Paragraph
• Dropdown (Respondents choose an answer from a menu that drops down)
• Linear scale: Respondents rank something along a scale of numbers
• Multiple choice grid: Respondents choose points on a grid

To prevent respondents from leaving a question blank, you can toggle ‘Required’ button from Off to On.

4- Add a section to your form
Sections provide structure to your forms and allow you to divide your forms into different parts. To add a section to your form, click on the Section icon on the right hand side and a section will be automatically added to your form. You can then add a title and description to your section.

5- Control navigation to sections of a form
A-
You can easily control how respondents navigate your form based on the answers they provide. For instance, you can direct respondents with a Yes answer to a particular section while sending users with a No answer to a different section. Here is how to do it.

• Open your form
• Click the Question icon  and add a question you want to lead to a specific section of your form. The question needs to be either: Multiple choice or Choose from a list
• On the right side of the question, click the More icon .
• Choose Go to section based on answer.
• Next to your answers for this question, choose specific pages to send respondents to when they choose an answer. You can also choose to send respondents to the confirmation page based on an answer by selecting "Submit form."

B-
Alternatively, you can allow respondents to move from one section to any other section in the form by adding this setting to your form:

• Open the form.
• Add section breaks by clicking the Section icon .
• At the bottom of each section, you'll see a dropdown menu with options for where to send respondents next. By default, it's set to "Continue to next section," but you can change it to send respondents to a specific section in your form or to the form's confirmation page.

6- Choose where to store responses
There are two ways to collect responses submitted to your form: either through the form itself or through a spreadsheet. Here is how to choose where to store responses:

• Open the form.
• At the top, click the Responses tab
• Click the More icon .
• Select Choose a response destination.
• Choose from the following destinations:
• New spreadsheet: Creates a new spreadsheet in Google Sheets for responses
• Enter in an existing spreadsheet: Choose from your existing spreadsheets in Google Sheets to store responses
• Click Create.

7- Send your form to respondents
There are four ways to send your form: email, a direct link, social media websites, embed link.

8- Invite collaborators
You can invite collaborators to work with you on the same form.’When you share a Google form with a collaborator, you give that person full editing access to the form. They will have the ability to make any changes they want to the form, including a change to where responses are collected. Also, When you're working with someone on a form, each of you can edit one field at a time. For example, one person can edit the text of a question while the other person edits the help text of that same question.’

Here is how to share a form with collaborators:

• Open a form.
• Click the File menu.
• If you don't see a "File" menu, click the More icon  in the top right.
• Choose Add collaborators.
• In the text box under "Invite people," add the names or email addresses of your collaborators and choose the level of access you want them to have.
• Click Done.

Source: Google Forms Help page.

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Some Very Good Google Forms Tools for Teachers

May 31, 2015
Google Forms is one of the versatile tools we use for a wide variety of instructional purposes. From creating survey forms to designing short formative assessment quizzes, Google Forms is definitely a life saver for teachers.With the added functionalities brought about by integrated add-ons , teachers can now perform some amazing things with their forms. Below are three examples of tools to simplify your classroom workflow.

1- Doctopus

“Doctopus gives teachers the ability to mass-copy (from a starter template), share, monitor student progress, and manage grading and feedback for student projects in Google Drive…Doctopus increases student collaboration and enables a powerful shift in teacher workflow --  scaling teachers' ability to manage and assess writing tasks and projects that motivate rich, authentic student production and collaboration (e.g. the development of core career, college, and 21st-century skills).”

2- gClassFolders

“gClassFolders (gCF) helps teachers manage digital classroom workflow when using Google Apps with their students.  It does this by creating folders with specific permissions.  Each Classroom will be setup with:“Assignment” folders,  “Class Edit”,  “Class View”, and “Teacher” folder. Once the folders are created teachers can manage students and distribute files.”

3- AutoCrat

“Flexible, easy to use document merge tool that creates PDF or shared Documents from spreadsheet data….Automates the creation and sharing of personalized (e.g. merged) Google Docs or PDF email attachments from columns of data in a Google Sheet.”

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7 Great Google Forms Tools for Teachers

February 25, 2015
Since its release a few months ago, add-ons store for Google Forms has several interesting tools added to it. We have gone through these apps and selected the most popular ones there. You can use these add-ons on your forms to add more features and options such as : sending custom emails based on responses, eliminate an option from a multiple choice list after user has submitted it, populate multiple choice lists and grid options from columns in any Sheet, and many more.

1- Form Notifications

This add-on allows users to create and configure email notifications that are sent when a Form receives submissions. Users can have emails sent to the creator of the Form and/or send short, customized reply emails to the Form submitter.

2- formLimiter

Close your survey automatically, after a maximum number of responses is reached, or at a date and time of your choosing.

3- Ultradox Trigger

Create custom emails, reports, invoices, newsletters, etc., based on information that people enter into your form.

4- Form Values:

 Store and pull from lists that you use regularly in Forms, like a list of staff, students, rooms, resources or anything you want.

5- FormRanger

formRanger allows you to auto-populate the choices in list, multiple choice, checkbox or grid question options from columns of data in any Google Sheet or Doctopus roster. Great for ensuring form choices match values in an existing database of records, such as students, inventory items, expected attendees, workshop or session titles, etc. -- useful for then applying matching formulas such as COUNTIF, VLOOKUP, MATCH, and others.

6- Choice Eliminator

This will eliminate options from a multiple-choice, list, or checkbox type of question. Great for signing up for time slots or having students choose topics without doubling up.

7- gMath for Forms

Create graphs (including plotting points), statistical displays, and write complex math directly in your Form!Create graphs and complex math directly in the sidebar and insert them as Form items.

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Teacher Tip- Use Google Forms to Instantly See students Feedback

February 5, 2015
Today I am sharing with you a handy Google Sheets tip to use on the forms you share with students. This tip allow you to receive a notification email  every time a student submits a form. You can select whether you want to be notified each time a change is made to the form or only when a user submits a form. Similarly, you can also choose whether you want to receive a daily digest email or an instantaneous email. In this way, you will be able instantly track all the forms submission from your students and determine who submitted what and when.

To enable this notification feature, head over to your Google form, and click on “ Tools” and select “Notification rules”

Select from the options provided in the box.

Watch this video to learn more about this tip.

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