Emerging Technology - Google Forms

For my second look at an emerging educational technology, I have chosen Google Forms. In my previous post, I took a look at the other applications in Google Docs. Once I saw what Google Forms could do, I knew it deserved its own post.

It is very simple to use. It allows you to type in questions, choose the format for the answer, and add general directions for the reader. When you are finished, you have a URL address to an electronic form that stores the answers in a spread sheet for you, the creator. Once I discovered this I had to think up an immediate application. So I decided to type up a five question survey to send to some friends of mine that attend an annual social event that I have been hosting for 10 years. My answer formats included: text, paragraph text, and choose from a list. It took maybe 10 minutes to type in the whole thing. I emailed out the URL to my select list of 35 friends, and within 24 hours, I had twenty replies. Not bad at all. There is also an analysis tool included that showed a summary of results for each question. When appropriate there is even a bar graph displayed. And if you prefer, you can export the results data to an excel spreadsheet.

(In fact my husband was bummed when I showed it to him. He had just led a team- building retreat for a not-for-profit and he said that this application could have saved him a few hours if he had used it to replace a paper questionnaire.)

So as an educational tool, can anyone say ----- prior knowledge assessment? In a web cast from the 2008 NECC that I listened to recently, Cheryl Lemke, who spoke on “The Ripple Effect – 21st Century Innovations that Matter”, directly referenced prior knowledge assessment as integral to instructional best practices. As a chemistry teacher I have met so many high school students whose preconceptions lead directly to misconceptions. Abstract learning of chemistry concepts is already hard enough without needing to overcome a variety of misconceptions. And in a study that I recently reviewed in an earlier blog post (Moallem, Kermani, and Chen, 2005), while I disagreed with many of the assertions made by the authors about the effective use of handheld wireless computers in the classroom, they also discussed the benefits of prior knowledge assessment that could be done and quickly submitted via the web prior to class.

I am also thinking that students could potentially use Google Forms to set up data collection for an investigation or science fair project. The simplicity of it is appealing.

Since I am going into elementary schools and helping with their science programs, this tool would be a useful way to briefly survey the teachers with questions like: “How much time per week do you spend on science?”; “What are your favorite and least favorite science topics to teach?”; or “ Is there a science topic for which you would like more support?”. Usually I have to verbally ask the teachers in person because papers just get lost in the shuffle. I think they would be more likely to fill out an electronic form.

As far as drawbacks, student access outside of school is the primary issue. There also could be privacy issues since I believe the data could be accessed. The searches I did to confirm this did not turn up conclusive information on privacy for Google Docs as a whole. I am sure the issue will play out overtime – but as educators we should be aware of what we are using on the web.

So overall, I give a big thumbs up for Google Forms as a potentially useful educational tool.

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Lemke, Cheryl. "The Ripple Effect - 21st Innovations that Matter." National Educational Computing Conference. San Antonio, TX. 30 June 2008.

Moallem, M., Kermani, H. & Chen, S. (2005).Handheld, Wireless Computers: Can they Improve Learning and Instruction?. Computers in the Schools. 22, 93-106.