Comments on: The Desks Will Hover

By: Reflect, Feed-back, Repeat | connect. create. question.

Reflect, Feed-back, Repeat | connect. create. question. — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:22:05 +0000

[...] However, I think next time I do, I might change the way I do things and take Kevin’s advice about using GoogleDocs Forms. Thanks, Kevin! And of course, thanks to all my students for their [...]

By: Bill Gaskins

Bill Gaskins — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:10:06 +0000

Kevin,
I use to do open surveys with students for years. We would create lists on chart paper and my of these lists lived in different places on the wall around the room. Many times ideas from the list would become stories during writing workshop and the ideas for writing usually swelled. Sometimes the lists would be made into poems and find other ways to stretch beyond the walls of the classroom. Reading post like this make me really miss the classroom. Thanks for pushing my thinking….

Bill

By: dogtrax

dogtrax — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:44:22 +0000

Hi
What is great about Google Forms is the simplicity.

Open up your Google Docs, and under “new”, click “Form.”
Now, just follow the directions for creating questions.
You can then use the embed/share button to put it into a blog post or webpage.

The way you can see the results visually is to go back into your Google Docs and click on your survey (it will look like an excel sheet) and one of the options will be “form.” Then, click “analyze” and Google will spit your data out as graphs and charts for you. I then just take a screenshot and share it out. (This feature from Google is new).

Good Luck
Kevin

By: MsMichetti

MsMichetti — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:29:07 +0000

Hi Kevin,
I saw some of your survey results over at the Electronic Pencil and it really caught my eye. I regularly give reflection surveys to my students throughout the year and I am always finding something surprising about them (I’ve got a blog post in draft form at the moment that is just about this topic). However, I’m currently struggling with the basics of giving the surveys, mostly because of my lack of tech knowledge when it comes to this kind of thing. I have in the past used Zoomerang to give the surveys but I’m struggling to manipulate the data that comes from that. It looks like you did yours in GoogleDocs… I’m familiar with GoogleDocs but not Forms… any chance you could give me a tip or two? What I really want to do is what you’ve done — take the survey results and put them into a visual (graph, Wordle, etc.) — and this is where my knowledge falls short. Any help / advice appreciated!

P.S. I am also thinking about starting a class blog modelled much after yours at The Electronic Pencil. My students have been exposed to “in house” blogging for a while and I think some of them are now ready to go “public.” Thanks for keeping yours so open and fresh! (Please thank your students, too.)