Google forms are one of my favorite tools to make our lives simpler. If I need information, it goes into a form. If I want feedback –it goes into a form. This tool more than any other has allowed me to use so much less paper in my job. I’ve gone from being the queen of piles to super organized because everything curates into excel spreadsheets, graphs, and charts that are easily accessible in Google Drive.
As a teacher, forms gives you so many options. Think, tickets out the door, tickets, in the door, quizzes, and formal summatives. I want the teachers I work with to get technology to do the grading for them if it’s possible. Yes, we do projects and assessments where it isn’t, but if it is, have the technology do it for you! Forms also allows for branching so if a question is missed, it can direct students to the next question you want them to go to.
As a ticket in the door you can have quick data as to where students need to go that day; or, even better, teach students to use the to make decisions about what they need to learn based on that formative data. IDEAL personalized learning. Once students have that information they know they need to sit in the teacher’s group or go to station X, for example.
Another of our favorite assessment tools is Go Formative. The teacher easily creates an assessment. Then this tool allows the teacher to watch a dashboard as students are completing the assessment. Teachers can be circulating around the room as students complete it; or even teaching a small group while another group of students in the class are completing the assessment. It is also one of the most robust online assessments I’ve seen. It has drawing options (yay math teachers) and short response options.
Another favorite of students and teachers is Quizziz. This allows students to work at their own pace while teachers can show a leader board on the front board. This is in contrast to Kahoot! where everyone waits after each question for the entire class. It’s simple in Quizziz for teachers to create assessments, gather data, and use that data for instruction. The students love the memes that appear after each question. It’s the little things, right?