Google Forms Quizzes… My Smashed Example

I love what Google Forms, Sheets, and some extras (Add-ons & Extensions) can provide in terms of assessment, immediate feedback, badging, sharing of resources, timely communication… the list goes on.

I’ve written in the past about various features within Google Forms (When it rains, it pours: Playing w/ Forms pt 2, for example), but haven’t focused on one of the biggest updates, in my opinion. When Google Form’s Quiz feature was released I saw this as an answer to automated digital grading. Enhancing this with some extras, now a teacher has a powerful tool in their arsenal. So here is my example (access via link or embedded below).

I can’t leave you without explaining the ‘how’ of it all… As the Form states:

This will see if you are ready to be a Jedi Master! This will also show the latest features of Google Forms:

  • the ability to turn any multiple choice, checkbox, dropdown or short answer response question into a quiz (i.e. graded w/ pre-determined feedback)
  • add images to questions and/or answer choices
  • grade an open-response (full sentence/paragraph responses) in a quick dashboard
  • integration with EquatIO (free extension for educators which assist in writing mathematical notation)

As well as how to establish a badge component based on score.

Let’s break it down

The power of Google Form Quizzes is in the automation of grading. When you turn on a Google Form Quiz, you are essentially unlocking a set of options available (depending on the question type). As the first bullet point above lists out, various question types can then be given point values, have the correct choice(s) selected, and feedback created for either correct or incorrect input. Plus the feedback can have weblinks or YouTube videos associated with them. After the Form is submitted, on the confirmation screen (message is also customizable) there is a link (if you choose in the Quiz settings) to view your results. Now students are receiving timely feedback with potential resources to follow-up on!

We live in a very visual society. Anytime we can associate a question of answer choice with an image, we should. This example Form showcased both, questions which had an image to reference as well as questions where each answer choice had an image. When editing a question or answer choice, keep an eye out for the image button, which will open a pop-up for inserting an image.

‘Insert Image’

Open response questions can’t be automatically graded but are easily graded in the Google Form dashboard (not in the Sheet of responses).

Google Form ‘Responses’ Dashboard

A Google Chrome Extension, EquatIO (which is free for teachers), offers seamless integration with Google Forms so I can place mathematical notation in as a question or answer image.

EquatIO toolbar accessible in Google Forms

Now for some behind the scenes magic

I have some various add-ons, formulas, and settings established on the Google Sheet of submissions. I’ll start with the formulas…

=if(C2>=8,“https://URL”, “”) – this first formula is a column inserted to the right of the ‘Score’ (auto-generated column by the Quiz feature of Google Forms). It is used to establish the insertion of the ‘Publish to the Web’ link of the digital badge they receive if their score is greater than or equal to eight; otherwise the cell remains blank. This will be needed in the generated email to the Form submitter.

=If(C2>=8,“Based on your score you have received a badge for passing your Jedi test.”,“Young Padawan, do or do not, there is no try in earning a badge.”) – this formula is a column inserted to the right of the IF… column above. It is used to insert one of two statements based on the score of their Form. This will be needed in the generated email to the Form submitter.

=IF(C2>=8,“🔦”,“”) – this formula is a column after all the questions in the Sheet. It is used as a visual for me to know who passed.

Now the Google Sheet has some various settings activated. First is the ‘Notification rules…’ to alert me whenever a user submits a Form. This way I can go in and grade the final open-ended question. The second setting used is the ‘Insert’ ‘Checkbox’ which will be the trigger for sending the email to the user. I also utilize the ability to ‘Hide column’ for items in the Sheet which I don’t need to see (such as the columns of auto-graded questions).

Finally, I have a variety of Google Sheet Add-ons utilized.

copyDown – Copies each formula in a Sheet every time a new Form submission is collected.

Crop Sheet – This item allows the owner of a Sheet to crop the unneeded rows and columns of a Sheet.

formMule – After collecting the email address in the Form and the checkbox is clicked in the Sheet an email will be formatted and sent looking like the item below:

Hopefully this has given you some ideas on how powerful Google Form’s Quizzes can be for education. If you are interested in more technology integration ideas please consider joining my Summer Classroom…

FREE Learning Opportunity This Summer w/ Me

Over the last 3 years, I’ve been stationed in a middle school as their Teacher Resource Specialist for Technology (technology coach). One way I have offered learning opportunities is by creating ‘Assignments’ in our school’s Google Classroom. These activities are examples of how to incorporate technology in their instruction. I do this with the hope that a teacher may find inspiration for their subject’s content and design a learning activity for their students. I want to expand this to other teachers, because I find that as a teacher completes one and talks to me about it, we both learn together. So my hope is this summer I will post 2-3 ‘Assignments’ each week and we can learn together. If you are interested please join my Google Classroom by going to classroom.google.com, click the “+” button in the top, right-hand corner, and enter code: cvbaw2y

***Update*** If you can’t join the Classroom on your District GSuite Account it is probably because there is a setting turned on which prevents “outside the domain” connecting of Classrooms. Your options are: ask your network administrator to change that setting or join with your personal Google Account.

My plan is to start posting ‘Assignments’ in this Classroom on June 15 & run it through August 15. Everything is optional & FREE. I hope you consider joining, even just to check it out.

Mathematical Nets + Digital Video Creation = H∅l∅gr⦫phi⋐ ∱un

Holograms, once thought of as a thing of the future, are becoming more and more prevalent today. Here’s how a math lesson became a chance in holographic creation.

The past two years I’ve worked with some amazing sixth grade math teachers (shout-outs to Linda S., Taylor S., and Raisa D.) during their geometry unit. One of the items students study are nets or patterns which can be folded to create 3-D shapes. An activity which can reinforce the concept is creating a holographic projector, maybe you’ve seen one on YouTube.

They kicked-off the lessons with a couple of pop culture references in which holograms were used:
CW’s The Flash ➔ 2×20
ABC’s The Good Doctor ➔ 1×09

Next, they worked with students in creating miniature holographic projectors for a smart phone. They extended the construction by having the students design & build larger ones for tablets or Chromebooks.

Make sure toggle through the images below

Afterwards, the students had the ability to create their own videos for holographic projection. We utilized our licenses to WeVideo to create our recordings which are then layered & arranged in different quadrants. I supplied a video tutorial for the students.

Unleashing student creativity was AWESOME!!! Some students recorded themselves showing off some dance moves, others got more creative. I worked with a couple of students, some wanted to green screening and others wanted to do time lapse/stop motion animation. Here are two examples below:

What kind of project/activity have you been amazed by students’ creativity? I would love to read about it in the comments below.

Next Step in my Scripting Journey…

Back in November, I wrote a post on dabbling with Google Apps Script to create an Unconference Board with specifically formatted session Google Docs.

Well fast forward about half a school year and another event came up that needed a conference board created and session docs attached. One of the draw backs to my previous process was all the session docs were created in My Drive. I then needed to go and select all the files and put them into a folder for the event. I know, you’re probably thinking, ‘that won’t take that long‘ but I feel it should be automated.

Well after some digging and many, many failed attempts (let me just tangent here about failed attempts for a second, Google Apps Script alerts you to issues with a small red text box that tells you what line of the script is at issue but very vague as to what is the issue) I was able to get a script written/modified which will search My Drive for files containing a word or phrase in the file name, then move them to a particular folder while also removing them from My Drive. Take a look at the embedded ThingLink of the script below (I chose ThingLink so I could tag all of the different sources I used to compile my script).

What have you scripted lately? I would love to read about it in the comments below.

A HyperDoc About HyperDocs

Much like in the Seinfeld episode above, my colleague, Stacey, and I had the idea to introduce teachers to HyperDocs by having them complete a HyperDoc on HyperDocs. This way they are authentically going through learning and doing each component. Take a look at our embedded Google Doc below:

I’m planning on facilitating some online digital learning through a Google Classroom this summer. In the Classroom, we will explore some different ways to incorporate technology through a variety of activities (“Assignments”). This HyperDoc activity is one of the items we will explore. Keep an eye out for more information on this FREE learning opportunity.

Have you ever used HyperDocs? I would love to read about your experiences below. 

NJAGC’s Annual Conference

The New Jersey Association for Gifted Children (NJAGC) held their annual conference this past March at the Conference Center at Mercer. While I am not a member of the organization, my classroom-mate, Rebecca McLelland-Crawley, is and asked if I would be able to facilitate a session on technology integration. I said, “sure!”

Now last summer, when the teacher resource specialists for technology, a team which I am a part of, planned summer trainings my colleague, Kim Lowden, designed a Breakout EDU activity around SAMR. I thought this would be perfect to launch the session at NJAGC. I asked Kim if we could collaborate on this session (unfortunately, she was unable to help facilitate with me).

At the start of the session, I was introduced and asked if the announcement could end with, “I hope you are ready for an outside of the box session!” Hopefully it was. We started by breaking into the box which had the ‘key to effective PD‘ then we watched a video explaining Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR). I tried to clear-up the common misconception of SAMR being a ladder, or linear progression in your instructional approach to technology integration. I used two infographics to showcase how somedays it’s perfectly fine to use technology for substitutional purposes. Then we did a scaffolded activity where the participants looked at various tech tools categorized in a SAMR Google Drawing. The initial task was to determine the ‘why’ & ‘how’ of a particular tool categorized the way it was. Then we worked up to filling in a Padlet where the participants took a tool they are familiar with and show ‘how’ it can be utilized at each part of SAMR. Check it out…

Embedded below are the Slides we prepared, underneath it is a video recorded by Roberta Braverman of the Breakout activity in action.

 

Cool tech session at annual conference. School friendly (like Escape room) tech trainer Dan Gallagher teaches us SAMR! Roberta Kaplan Braverman Alex Law Cilla Ricciardi Hernandez

Posted by New Jersey Association for Gifted Children on Friday, March 23, 2018

What was a session you recently facilitated or participated in which was outside-the-box? I would love to read about it in the comments below.