Grading Using Google Forms: Flubaroo

Imagine having a quick and simple way to grade formative assessments like homework or short quizzes.  I have used everything from Mastery Manager, CPS clickers, CMS, and the good old pen and paper to try to do this efficiently.  Now, using Google Forms, I have found the most seamless way to incorporate formative assessment grading and evaluation into my daily curriculum.

It's called Flubaroo...cute, no?

As a general overview...

1. To use Flubaroo you first create a Google Form that contains your questions from your formative assessment, like your homework from the night before (or it can be the formative assessment itself).


2. You fill in the form yourself to create an answer key.


3. Students fill in the form.  They could be answering questions that they see on the form, or the form could simply be a generic place for them to input their answers from their homework the night before [Math teachers...I'm looking at you :) ]


4. Google Forms collects all of those answers in a Spreadsheet for you.


5. You install and run Flubaroo.  It grades the students work against your answer key.


6. A new sheet is made that shows you a class overview, everyone's scores individually, highlights questions that are missed at a high frequency, and more!

 

Check out this official overview for more details, and watch the 3 minute clip below if you are interested.

As always, your district and building coaches can be contacted if you would like a hands-on demonstration!

 

Filter Google Searches by Reading Level!

Problem:

Whenever my students search for content on Google, the reading level is WAY to advanced for them.

Solution:

 Filter your Google search results by reading level.

Filtering your search results by reading level is now built into Google search.

To do this, enter your search on the main Google page, then click on the "Search tools" box.  A new set of options will be displayed below.  Click "All results" and you will be greeted by a drop down menu where "Reading level" may be chosen.  Alternatively, you can click on the gear icon (located on the right side of the following picture) and choose "Advanced search".



The "Advanced search" button will take you to the following page.

You can now select just the reading level you'd like to see: Basic, Intermediate or Advanced.



With "Basic" clicked, all the results are of a basic reading level.

So... what's "Basic" versus "Intermediate" versus "Advanced"?

The reading-level is based primarily on statistical models Google built with the help of teachers. They paid teachers to classify pages for different reading levels, and then took their classifications to build a model of the intrinsic complexity of the text. With this model, they can classify the reading level of any webpage.

So the breakdown isn't grade- or age-specific, but reflects the judgments of teachers as to overall level of difficulty. Roughly speaking, "Basic" is elementary level texts, while "Intermediate" is anything above that level up to technical and scholarly articles.  "Advanced" is going to contain the most detailed information available on a topic.

It is important to note that Wikipedia articles almost always come up in the Advanced category.  Since Wikipedia articles are often the first "hit" of a search, most of our kids are trying to research from a source that is far above their reading level!

KJHS 7th Grade Study of 13 Colonies

During a study of the 13 Colonies and three regions, students In Mrs. Kindred’s class used various resources to research the founding of the 13 Colonies. It began with groups finding facts to complete a semantic feature analysis framework. This visual organizer encourages students to discover the relationship of categories. Each group researched: the colonies belonging in each region, religions, geography, climate, economics, politics, and famous people. Students listened and watched videos from Discovery Education, gathered facts from online sources, the textbook, and from class discussions. As a culminating activity, students created a Photostory based on the information learned about the 3 regions of Colonial America. Students developed a deeper understanding of the birth of America and how economics were determined by geography and climate.

Mrs. Kindred, 7th Grade Social Studies, KJHS

Full Google Drive Integration into a Science Project

Problem:

A group project involving the promotion of global aid organizations.  How can students collaborate on this project from home and school alike?  Can we use Google Applications to make the whole project more efficient and productive?  Windows Movie Maker had been used ineffectively to do something similar in the past.

Solution:

 Create a worksheet in Google Docs and email it to the students.  Do their research and image gathering in Google Docs using the Research tool.  Create the product in Photostory.  Provide feedback and assessment using a Google Form.

How We Did It:

 



During this project I worked hand in hand with Environmental Studies teacher Joel Swanson.  We first developed a Make an Impact Worksheet in Google Docs that provided students not only with the typical information they would need, but also with links to research  locations, help sheets, and more.  Because his students were/are still learning the ins and outs of Google Drive, I decided not to "Share" the document with them, but rather to "Publish" the worksheet to the web, and send them a link through their Gmail account.  This method (explained here) allows the students to simply click on a link and interact with the worksheet; precisely what we needed.  *As an aside, you can also embed a document like this directly into a page on your CMS if you wish*

Our next step was to introduce a new way to research information to the kids.  We had them create a Google Doc, share it with their group members, and then dive into the Research tool that Google offers.  Information about sharing files and the research function can be found in the training > help sheets area on Teacher's Corner.  Students were excited about how easy it was to find information, move it into their shared research document, and keep track of their citations!  The best part?  Both group members can be finding images and doing research on the same document at the same time!   What a time saver.

 

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We then proceeded to have the students created their Impact Videos using Photostory.  If you are looking to have students narrate over images that they find during research, I cannot stress the ease of use and professional quality that you can get with Photostory. It can be downloaded on student computers through Stuview, and is a free download from Microsoft for home use.  The Make an Impact Video Worksheet (linked above) has a link to a Photostory help sheet if you are interested.



Finally, and most excitingly, we had students participate in the assessment and feedback process by having them fill in a form as groups presented.  The form, pictured here, allowed students to rate each aspect of the presentations and provide written feedback to each group.  It kept students engaged in the presentations and provided them a quick and simple way to voice their opinions.  The best part?  The form collects all of the scores, we tallied everything up in less than a prep period, and just like that we had every presentation scored and ready to hand back!  We even copied each written comment into a Word document to be handed back to students when we see them after Thanksgiving.  Since we are leaving for Thanksgiving break, the top three groups are going to be notified through their Gmail accounts.

If you have any questions about the project, please leave a comment!

Evans Campaign Commercials

While covering the 2012 Election, Evans 6^th Grade students on Team Evangers worked on campaign commercials for their chosen candidate.  Groups studied strategies advertisers use to persuade others and their candidate’s political views.  Students then narrowed their focus of the topics they wanted to discuss and began writing scripts for their candidate.  Using the Small Wonder video camera the students recorded their campaign commercials throughout the building, using various settings and backdrops.   Once finished recording, Mrs. O'Day and I helped train the team on saving their video on Google Drive as well as MovieMaker and how to properly import, edit and enhance their work.  Students then finalized their video and uploaded their final product to CMS.  We shared some of our outstanding work with others at Evans Junior High during Election Week!  This activity was very relevant to current events and gave students a glimpse of what is involved behind the scenes in politics.  Our technology resources such as CMS, our laptops, Google Drive and MovieMaker made this election activity manageable and enjoyable for all!  To see examples of these projects please visit  the Middle School Tutorial Page on CMS, under Teacher's Corner. Scroll to the Movie Maker section and Student Samples. Enrollment code is oday. Here is a link directly to the page.

Jim Broach
6^th Grade
Evans Junior High School

 

Journey of a Lifetime – Take a Virtual Tour Around the World Using Google Earth and the SMART Board

Using their own passport, every Monday afternoon, 5^th grade students at Glenn Elementary are boarding on the SMARTBoard, flight #2012 to take  a virtual tour around the world. Over the summer, Mrs. Denise Holmes, 5^th grade teacher at Glenn,  participated in Digital Mania as an instructor and as a participant. She created this lesson plan putting together CMS, SMART Notebook, Discovery Education, and Google Earth. Using the laptop cart, her students are flying around the world without getting any jet lag!  The following success story was writen by Mrs. Denise Holmes...

 

The student’s in Mrs. Holmes’ fifth grade classroom at Glenn Elementary are going on the journey of a life time right from their own desks!  Every Monday afternoon a card is drawn identifying an important landform, country or historic site through out the world.  After we identify our destination on a large world map we prepare to depart.  The students get their passport, which also serves as their trip log, and after watching a flight safety video, take off on the first leg of their journey.  We begin by flying to the location through Google Earth.
Upon arrival at their destination they are to record the current time, latitude, longitude and elevation.  They turn on a number of options in layers and begin touring the area.  They record the geography of the location, paying attention to population density, areas of agriculture and routes of transportation.  The students enjoy going to ground level and have found that sometimes they can enter buildings or monuments.  They are able to look at photos that other visitors have posted.  They can mark their visit and have the location saved to their places menu.
After spending sometime exploring the site and recording the information in their log they exit Google Earth and log in to www.wunderground.com .  This site allows them to visit locations around the world through the eyes of live webcams.  They are able to discover the current weather conditions and learn about time zones, (often it’s night time).  The webcams provide a look back at the images for a period of a month and view video through time lapse photography.  Wunderground provides them with a “right now” glimpse of life in the specific location.
Our last stop is in Discovery Education.  By opening the Discovery Atlas Interactive Map students can select a location and fly to it, similar to Google Earth.  Each location provides a number of short videos related to the areas of culture, government, history and the natural world.  Viewing the videos deepens the students’ understanding of the lives and history of the people living there.
More information on the Google Earth – Journey of a Lifetime can be obtained by contacting Denise Holmes at holmesdc@unit5.org or Rita Gyires at gyiresrk@unit5.org.

Using Google Spreadsheets to Collect Class Data In Science Class

Problem:

Science teachers often need to compile data from many groups over many trials in order for the whole class to visualize their data.  This comparison can lead to in depth conversations about sources of error and best lab practices.  But collecting all of that data is a pain!  It takes too much instructional time to have each student write in their data on a single class-wide data sheet.

Solution:

 A shared Google spreadsheet allows each student to type their data into a class-wide data sheet at the same time.  This sheet can be shared over multiple classes, as well, allowing students to see data from hundreds of students instead of dozens.  Students can use the same sheet to comment on each others work, and chat in real time about their data.

How We Did It:

Mrs. Klokkenga and Mr. Weber at NCWHS conduct a lab in which their classes travel to a local lake and take water samples.  Each class is separated into six groups, each focusing on a different aspect of water testing.  They record data in the field and bring that back to share with the class the following day.  We set up a Google spreadsheet (click image for larger view) that contained space for all of the groups data from each class.  The spreadsheet was then shared to every student in each of the three classes.  When students logged in to Google Drive, they opened the spreadsheet from their "Shared with me" folder.  Every student in class (and even students from the other class) could be in the spreadsheet at the same time filling in their groups data.  Each student could see each others work in real time!  This shortened a process that normally could take an entire class period down to an activity that could be completed in only a few minutes.  That left time for more meaningful discussion about the data.  Not to mention that the students could now compare their data with the two other classes who also did water testing!  Check out the video below to see these features in action.

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In the video below, take note of the following things...

• Multiple classes are present in the sheet


• Multiple students are viewing and editing the document at the same time (right side)


• A chat is occurring between students and the teacher

 

Important Google Drive Updates!

For Students

Students often have difficulty managing the uploading and downloading of files from Google Drive.  In an effort to make this process much more simple, students can now download the Google Drive App for PC on their computer.  This will put a set of folders on the computer which automatically sync with their folders in Google Drive.  Now students can simply save their work to this folder, and know that it will be copied directly to their Google account.  They can also open all of their documents from this location, edit them, and save over their previous version.  You can find detailed directions on how to have students download this application from Stuview here.  This has been tested in various classrooms throughout the district, and the feedback from both teachers and students has been overwhelmingly positive.

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For Staff

Staff now have access to their own Unit 5 Google Account.  This account offers access to Google Drive, Contacts, and Calendar.  If you choose to use your Google account you can look forward to the following possibilities...

• See exactly what your students see when they utilize their Google account.  You can more easily troubleshoot issues that arise for your students.


• Share a folder with your students.  Anything added to this folder will automatically appear in your students Google Drive.


• Have your students share their course folder with you so that you always have access to the files that they have there.


• Create Google documents that can be shared with colleagues and worked on collaboratively.


• Back up your H: drive and have access to your school files from any computer with Internet access.

 

You can access your Google account in the following ways...

1.  Access the Unit 5 specific version of Google

• Go to Staffview (sign in off-site using your email address and password)→ choose your level → click on the Google Drive icon at the top of the page


• Enter your Unit 5 user name and Abcd1234 as your password

 

2.  Go to Google

• From the main Google page, click on the sign in button


• Use your Unit 5 username@myunit5.org and Abcd1234 as your password


• Once signed in, you can click on the Drive option along the top of the page.

 

You can then change your password by clicking on your name in the upper right hand corner → Account → Security → Change Password

If these methods do not work, please fill out a helpdesk ticket in order to have your account set up.  There will be groups of staff members (ie. IMC specialists) who will need to do this process. 

Finally, staff have access to download the same Google Drive App for PC that was described in the student section.  Because of our permissions on the network, staff members can simply download the App directly from Google Drive.  The steps outlined for students will also work for staff members.