Introduction

Ask the class how could you gather information about our class?  Well it depends what we want to know! We might be able to gather some information visually (just by looking at people), some other things we'd need to ask people. We could go to each person one-by-one, or hand out lots of questionnaires to them, but that is a slow way to do it and ends up with lots of information on lots of sheets of paper that someone needs to look through or gather together.

 

In this lesson we'll be taking a look at another of the great apps in Google Workplace: Google Forms. This allows for the creation of online surveys and quizzes, and is a brilliant way to gather data quickly and efficiently, and then see powerful insights into what has been collected afterwards. There are so many different uses for Forms, but we'll be starting fairly simple in this lesson to gather some basic data about our classmates that we'll be able to use in the next lesson.

 

Put the students into pairs. They will work in these pairs for the next two lessons.

 

Help with Google Forms

You can find Google's help and guidance on using Google Forms HERE.

 

 

 

Creating your first form

The students can work at one computer or side-by-side on their own machines. Ask them to log in to their Google account and open Google Drive. Then ask JUST ONE OF THE PAIR to click New > More > Google Forms.

 

 

As soon as the new Form opens, ask the student that made the form to click on the three dots in the top right of the form and choose Add collaborators. 

 

 

They can then add their partner's email address to add them as an editor, then click Done. Both students will then be able to work on the form and it will be saved in both of their Google Drives (it will appear in 'Shared with me' for partner number 2).

 

 

Give your questionnaire a title and a short privacy statement in the description box. If we are collecting people's data we should be honest and respectful about what we are going to do with that data. We should not ask any questions that someone might be uncomfortable answering.

 

 

Add the first question to the ‘Untitled Question’ box provided. The first thing we want to know today is who is completing the form, so we're just going to call the first question 'Name' and make it a short answer question. We've also flicked the switch to make it a required question, which means people will have to give an answer before they can submit the form. 

 

 

Now we can add out next question. Click the + sign on the buttons to the right of the first question.

 

 

Add another question. We'll make this one about birthdays and make it multiple choice. Google Forms has some very clever features that will sometimes really help speed up your work. In this case, as we added the question about when your birthday is, it has provided us with suggested answers in blue.

 

 

You can pick which suggested answers to use, or ignore them and add your own options manually, but in this case, we do want to use all the months so we'll click 'Add all'. We're not going to make this a required question. We'd prefer it if people did answer it, but it gives them the chance to leave the question out if they'd rather not share that information about their family.

 

 

Ask the students to continue adding more questions so they have the Name question, plus four other questions about their classmates. Favourites are a good option to use as most people are happy to share that information. Encourage them to use multiple choice options for their questions. Remind them to think about whether it should be 'required' or not, based upon how personal the question is.

 

Here are some more examples we used, but you can choose your own.

 

 

Style your Form

Click on the palette icon at the top of the page to style your form.

 

 

 

You can make simple colour changes to the background, as well as change the font. You can also add a header image by clicking 'Choose an image', either by using one from the library provided or by uploading your own.

 

   

 

 

Form settings

Click on the gear icon at the top of the page to get to the Form settings.

 

 

In the Form settings > General at the top untick all boxes to make it easier for people to access the quiz.

 

Sending out your Form

Finally, on the form editing page, click Send.

 

This gives you a number of options for how to send your form out to people, but in this lesson we're just going to use the email option. All the students need to do is add the email addresses of about ten people in the class, and you, the teacher. They could add the next ten people sitting to their right, so everyone gets sent a form. Remind them to be careful with spelling and using the correct email address when sending the form. They should ask people or their teacher if they are unsure of an address. 

 

 

When the addresses are added they can click the Send button. 

Then give the class some time to check their email inbox where they should find the different forms that people have sent them. They should open the email, open the form and complete the questions, being sure to click submit at the end.

 

Viewing responses

Once people have submitted their answers you can see all their responses back in the form. At the top of the page, click on Responses (the number shows how many people have completed your form so far).

 

 

The summary tab give the most useful view as it automatically generates a summary or graph for each question, depending on what the question asked. The students will need to come back to this data in the next lesson.

 

 

Plenary

Recap and review the students' understanding of the lesson with the following questions:

• What have we created today?
• What advantages does an electronic form have over a paper based form?
• What is privacy? 
• How did we consider people's privacy today? 
• What is collaboration?

Explain that in the next lesson they will be using the information they collected in their form to make a collaborative presentation.