New Tutorial: Turning Google Forms responses into Charts

Recently, I've written a few Computer Skills tutorials on Google Drive applications for Tutsplus.com  My latest tutorial was inspired by friends who were looking to create charts from survey results from a Google Form. While it's easy once you get the hang of it, there are some steps that require a basic knowledge of formulas in spreadsheets. Take a look at my tutorial from Tutsplus.com ! They have hundreds of tutorials and video webseries on a variety of topics- so check out some of their other material too!

http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/turn-your-google-docs-form-responses-into-beautiful-visualizations--cms-21520

These Are a Few of My Favorite Forms: DIfferentiated Forms

Hello again! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. This past Monday, I presented at the NJASCD conference "Chromebooks and the Common Core" on the topic of Formative Assessment. Of course, I can't talk about formative assessment without my favorite Google app, Forms! 

I talked about Google Forms in general, and gave an example of how you can create a differentiated Google Form using the "Go To Page Based on Answer" option. Many people were interested in this particular Form, so I decided to create a tutorial. 

Here is the video tutorial I created! Let me know how you plan to use these kinds of Forms in your own class!

Excellent Extension: Readability Redux

As a Special Education teacher, there are often articles or websites I want my students to visit during class. However, they often get visually overwhelmed because most websites have ads, links to other articles, videos, comments: the list goes on and on. In order to eliminate this problem, I use a Google Chrome extension called Readability Redux. 

 Readability Redux eliminates the clutter and distractions from websites to make them easier for our Special Education students to focus on reading or looking for information. Take a look at the two images below- the first is a news website, and the second is the same article after using Readability Redux. The results speak for themselves! Try it in your classroom!

The Danger of TTWWADI, or "That's the Way We've Always Done It"

Sitting in class today, we read an excerpt from Understanding Digital Kids by Ian Jukes, Ted McCain, and Lee Crockett. The authors discuss the challenges we face in educating the new kind of students we encounter in schools. Our schools are not designed to educate these students, because neurologically, these students are different than students of the past.

So then why do we continue to educate students the same way? And many times, the answer is Because "That's the Way We've Always Done It" or as the authors call it- TTWWADI. Here is that excerpt called "The Five Apes" from Understanding Digital Kids we read in class from an example of why TTWWADI is dangerous. It's time to start asking the question- WHY NOT?

“Inside the cage, a bunch of bananas are hanging on a string and a set of stairs is placed under the bananas. Before long, one of the apes will see the bananas and start to climb the stairs to get to them.


As soon as they touch the stairs, you take a fire hose and spray all of the apes in the cage with ice cold water until you knock them down and drive them away from the bananas. Sooner or later another ape makes an attempt and, again, all the apes are sprayed with cold water.

Pretty soon, whenever another ape tries to climb the stairs, all the other apes will attack that ape to try to prevent it from going for the bananas because they don’t want to get sprayed by the ice cold water—another attempt, another attack, another attempt, another attack. Before too long, all of the apes know what will happen to them if they make a move.

Now, put away the fire hose and the cold water, remove one of the original five apes from the cage, and replace it with a new one. Of course, the new ape will see the bananas and attempt to climb the stairs. To its surprise and horror, all of the other apes will attack that ape to prevent it from climbing the stairs because they don’t want to get sprayed with ice cold water. Another attempt, another attack, another attempt, another attack.

Pretty soon the newest ape knows that if it climbs the stairs, it will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with new one. As Yogi Berra says, this becomes déjà vu all over again—the scene will repeat itself—and the first ape we replaced will actually take part in the punishment of the newcomer with the greatest enthusiasm!

Likewise, replace a third original ape with a new one, then a fourth and fifth. Every time a new ape tries to climb the stairs, it gets attacked. Interestingly enough, the apes who are beating him have NO IDEA why they are not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape. After replacing all the original apes, none of the remaining apes have ever even been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no ape will ever again approach the stairs to try for those bananas.

The question we need to ask is why not? And the answer is because as far as the apes in the cage know . . . well, that’s just the way we do things around here.”

Google Forms Tip: Changing Response Destination

Here's a quick tip for teachers who teach the same content in multiple periods. In a few quick steps, you can have students in separate periods take the same form, with all the responses in the same document but each class will have its own sheet. This tip is especially helpful if you're using a script like Flubaroo for grading, and want to e-mail grades separately for each class.

1. Create your Form. If you have the setting "Always Make a New Spreadsheet", then in your Google Drive there will already be a Spreadsheet with the same name as your Form (Responses). If not, click Send Form, e-mail the Form to your first class, and create a new Spreadsheet.

2. Make a copy of the Form by going to File -> Make a Copy. Rename your copy with the Class Period.

3. When the copy opens, go to Responses -> Change Response Destination. Then select New sheet in existing spreadsheet, followed by Choose. 

4. Select the original spreadsheet.

5. Open your original spreadsheet and you will now see an extra sheet at the bottom of the document. (You can rename each sheet by class period by selecting the arrow next to the current name and then Rename.)

6. Repeat steps 2-5 for as many classes as needed. Enjoy!


If you have any questions, leave a comment! Until next time!

TIP: Embedding Videos in your Google Forms

In the past month, I have given a few Professional Development workshops on Google Apps for Education. A common question I get is "how do I add videos to my Google Form?" So, here is a quick tutorial! Keep in mind, at this time you can only embed videos that are found on YouTube. However, this is such an extensive library, that shouldn't be limiting. Happy Form-ing!

Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus!

"The endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula in the Republic of Cascadia, peacefully frolicking in the conifer trees."

Not only is pulling an April Fool's Day prank on your students a great way to take a break from the seriousness of pre-high stakes testing, it can also provide a learning experience!

By coincidence, today my class was scheduled to visit the Media Center to work with our Media Specialist +Danielle DeCarolis on using databases such as EBSCO for finding resources for their Infographics. I took the opportunity to discuss source reliability by visiting the ever-popular (and very fake) website about the  Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. As a Do Now, I asked students to visit the website and fill out this graphic organizer with information from the website. After about five minutes of silent reading and recording, I asked students to share out what they learned. 

Then, I hit them with the big question- "Did anyone find anything STRANGE about this website?", followed by a HUGE laugh from the class, and "I can't believe we fell for that!" Next, we followed up with a discussion on reliable sources. We discussed the features of the website that made it seem real, and discussed why having sources such as newspaper or journal articles and encyclopedia entries are more reliable than trusting every result from a search engine. 

We had a great laugh together, and I think they learned something too! I'm sure they will not forget the Tree Octopus!