Oh, the things I learned today. (Missed what I learned yesterday? Check it out here.)
Google Forms:
I have relied on Google Forms pretty heavily this year, and it is my go-to tool for formative assessments, especially for the times when I just need the big picture of where my students are at due to the nice "Show summary of responses" feature. Having used forms so much, it's amazing to me how I got so involved in the more complex uses of Google Forms that I missed an obvious use that could have saved me a lot of time.
Because I wasn't yet used to thinking in a 1:1 state of mind at the beginning of the year--when I made my students sign up for individual Gmail accounts--I had them write them all on the board, where I copied them down one by one into my contact list. Needless to say, that isn't something I want to do again. This year I am going to have them enter their e-mail addresses into a Google Form to compile a nice list I can copy and paste into my contacts.
Google Spreadsheets:
I am really not a spreadsheet kind of gal. I can do your basic formulas and data entry, manipulate a few numbers here and there, and am adept at moving columns around so my spreadsheet makes absolutely no sense after about 10 minutes. If you want help doing any kind of advanced mathematical spreadsheet wizardy, I am the person to which you don't want to talk. I usually rely on the kindness of strangers who have set up spreadsheets beforehand and who have graciously shared them with me. But I was shown how to do two incredibly cool things with Google spreadsheets today: pivot tables and insert Google Gadgets.
Pivot tables (present in Excel, but the Google version is much more "not-a-spreadsheet-gal-friendly") are quick and easy ways to analyze the data present in your spreadsheet, and this science teacher was geeking out just a little when these were presented. The value of these in the science classroom is tremendous, especially when teaching students how to identify and analyze trends in data. For a tutorial on how to create them, click here. While the example in the tutorial is a simple one, if you are having students compile class data into a Google Spreadsheet, this could easily make the data more manageable and reduce student frustration.
Inserting a gadget in Google Spreadsheet is much trickier than creating a pivot table, simply because each gadget has its own unique setup needs. It was recommended that you insert the gadget, watch it not work, and then click on the gadget drop-down menu and select "About this gadget" to read the directions on how to use it. For a tutorial about how to insert a basic gadget, click here. What really impressed me was the graphing gadgets, and how they allow students to view trends in data and analyze data so they can draw logical (and better) conclusions.
Google Groups:
After being shown the magic and wonder that is Google Groups, I will definitely be using this in my classroom. Basically, it is a message board for your classes, and you can set up one for all of your students, set up individual class period groups, or connect smaller groups to a larger one.
Several ideas were generated about how to use Google groups in the classroom: announcements, homework assignments, student journals and discussion, parent discussion and message boards, entry and exit "slips," and possibly using it as a backchannel. But the idea we liked the most was using this as a "study hangout" for students. You could post study questions in there ahead of time, and/or require students to post their own study questions and help each other answer their questions.
Another neat "side-effect" of forming a Google Group for your classes is the fact that, once your group is created, they are assigned a group e-mail. You see, I had about 110 Biology students last year, and I would be prevented from sharing documents with about half of them with an error that said I exceeded my sharing quota. I know you can make the document public to anyone with the link, but, due to issues with our servers and bandwidth, I couldn't slap a link on my site and try and have everyone open it-it just didn't work. However, because a Google Group has just one group e-mail, you can share a document/spreadsheet/whatever Google creation you can dream up with that e-mail, and it will share the document with everyone in the group while only counting as one e-mail for the Google sharing-counters.
If you have any other uses for Google Forms, Spreadsheets, or Groups that we didn't think of, please feel free to share them in the comments below. After today, I can't wait for what Day 3 brings!