Friday, My experience with Google Forms

          To begin my adventure with Google Forms, I read pages 122-127 of Classroom in the Cloud. This reading gave me a great foundation of understanding on which to build my experiences, however after the reading my understanding of Flubaroo was still pretty vague.
          Google Forms is an online platform that teachers can use to create quizzes for their students. (The tool can also be used for additional purposes, such as parent surveys, etc.) Students or parents access the quiz through email or by using a URL code. The amazing thing about Google Forms is that data is automatically saved and sent to an attached spreadsheet, to which the teacher has access. This is a quick and easy way to collect information and assess student understanding. The spreadsheet created also allows for teachers to go through the quiz to see what questions each student answered incorrectly, and the wrong answer that was written instead. This can help teachers evaluate what students are missing and therefore plan future instruction accordingly.
          Rather than continuing to review information I gained through the reading of the text, I want to now transition into a discussion of my personal experience with Google Forms. Each instructional stage of the process was written out in the form of six packets of information, called Help Sheets. The objective of Help Sheet 1 was setting up the self grading quiz. I went to my Google Drive and selected "New-More-GoogleForms." These few clicks brought me to a blank quiz page. From here, I added all the necessary information for my quiz including the quiz title, the file name, a slot for the quiz-taker to input their first and last name, and the questions. For each question I was given the option of choosing my question type (true/false, multiple choice, short answer, or essay question). For my quiz I chose multiple choice for all 10 questions. There is also a "required" option, which communicates to the quiz-taker that the question is NOT optional. I chose to set all 10 of my questions, as well as the first and last name, as required. After creating my Google Form Quiz, I skipped over to Help Sheet 6 because it included instructions on choosing a visual "quiz theme." As my visual theme I chose a bookshelf.
          After creating my quiz (and making it visually appealing) I moved on to Help Sheet 2. The objective of this Help Sheet was grading the self-grading quiz. From the quiz page, I chose the option "Responses," and then the green box icon, which took me to a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet had the first row filled out for me. Columns A, B, and C said "Timestamp," "Last name," "First name," and D-M had each of the 10 quiz questions. After a couple of quick adjustments, I created my answer key which showed up in Row 2. After having my answer key applied, I then impersonated 5 students who took my quiz, for the purpose of practicing exercises with the response spreadsheet. This was accomplished by emailing the quiz form to myself. After having my information entered, I followed the Help Sheet carefully to set up my question numbers and average in columns P-Z. This was accomplished by typing in a formula (=Q1+1, where Q refers to the specific column.) Then, in cell Q3 I typed a second formula (IF(D3=D$2,100,0). This formula was necessary in order to compute the student's correct or incorrect responses. Lastly on this Help Sheet, I typed in one last formula into cell P3 (=Average(Q3:Z3). The purpose of this final formula is to calculate each student's average score.
          The objective of Help Sheet 3 is question analysis. Only one action was taken in response to this Help Sheet, and that was to input the formula =Average(Q4:Q10) into cell Q11. This formula is included to aid in analyzing student responses. This Help Sheet also discussed the actions that should be taken in a classroom when the majority of students miss the same question, only one student misses multiple questions, many students miss multiple different questions, etc.
            The objective of Help Sheet 4 was establishing a Grade Sheet. This is where I began to run into some confusion. I understood the visual representations shown in this Help Sheet, but making my own computer screen to look similar was a struggle for me. I understood the Help Sheet's discussion on the different grading scales (from CHIP, TEAM, GAIN and TECH, the four tracks from the same class), but was unable to apply that information to my own Grade Sheet. I began my attempt by creating a blank spreadsheet and inputting my own information. In place of CHIP, TEAM, GAIN, and TECH I created Track 1, Track 2, Track 3 and Track 4. I also added three additional columns for total, percentage, and final grade.
          I admittedly was unsuccessful in applying the content from Help Sheet 5 to my own Grade Sheet. The objective of that Help Sheet was posting to a grade sheet. After much trial and error, I finally figured out how to input the code (=IMPORTRANGE("1n5rMABo_A0r6lhvU9vTgtIPtoX4oRMgfDIHpJvVOe-E", ResponseForm1!P3:P7") in order to transfer the information on my Response Spreadsheet to the Grade Sheet, and figured out how to alphabetize my response form. I also applied the six different formulas into the correct cells (B6, C7, D8, E9, F10, and G11). However, that is about as far as I got. The instructions seemed to cut off there, but my Grade Sheet still looked nothing like the example grade sheet in the back of the Help Sheet packet. I believe part of my confusion was the fact that I only had the data from one quiz, rather than having a whole class set of assignments completed, making grade processing impossible. I did notice that each track had a different formula in order to accommodate to the different grading point scales.
          For the most part, I found Google Forms a fairly quick tool that seems like it would have effective assessment results. I found creating the quiz and the response form very simple, but I did experience difficulty when trying to understand the ins-and-outs of the Grade Sheet. With the exception of the Grade Sheet (which I will clearly need further instruction in order to use effectively) I can see myself using Google Forms in my classroom. I see the value in using the online quiz system as a way to analyze my students' progress and needs. Page 124 quickly touched on the tool known as Flubaroo, which is an assessment add-on to go along with Google Forms. This feature apparently allows for the quizzes to be self-grading. Without a full understanding, Flubaroo appears to be another option that would help make assessment more doable.

Below are the links to the quiz, response form, and grade sheet I created as a part of this experience:

Quiz: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xuWED7knGvif8JdJD4oEPKb6zaJ3BemGkgkiw2QWi7U/edit

Response Form: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1n5rMABo_A0r6lhvU9vTgtIPtoX4oRMgfDIHpJvVOe-E/edit#gid=1049752692

Grade Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UfgRY9znpKxWOmf9M62dftMrcADzhvSmSpucER1QwZw/edit#gid=0