Google Form Basics by Digital Maestro

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L ESSON 1

Google Form Basics Google forms are very easy to create and can be a useful tool in the classroom. I use Google forms when providing professional development and getting feedback from teachers. In this lesson we will explore some of the basics for creating a Google form. We'll create a feedback survey for professional development. This is a simple form and lays the foundation for future integration lessons for Google forms.

Select drive from the apps.

Click the create button.

Select Form from the available options.

If this is the first time creating a form with your account, Google will display a welcome message and some basic information about forms. Click the Get started button.

When the message closes, you will see a generic blank form. The first options on the form will be very useful when creating an assessment. I won't cover these options in this lesson because they don't apply to the form we will be creating. I do want to show a progress bar, so I will place a check mark on this option.

The form currently doesn't have a title. Click where it reads Untitled form.

The name is highlighted and will be erased when you begin typing the name of the form.

Below the title is a space where we can provide some information about the form. This is a useful location to provide information for your students about the form and the expectations. Let's click once in the form description and provide some information.

Our first question is already set as a multiple choice. Let's enter a question in the question title field.

We can provide helpful information about our question in the help text. This will appear with the question.

In my example I want the person to select the professional development he or she attended. I want them to select from a list of professional opportunities. This list can get a little long, so I won't use the multiple choice option. Instead I want to use a pull down list option. With a list, the choices won't be visible until the person clicks on the list option.

Select choose from a list.

To change the question type, click the question type pull down menu, which is a list option like the one we will create.

Let's click on option one and provide a professional development training for our list.

After typing a choice, click on the next field and enter another.

Did you notice that after you click and started typing on the next field, a new one automatically became available. in this example I'll enter just four trainings. We're done with our first question.

When asking questions we can make some of them have a required response. This means that the form can't be submitted to us until these questions have been answered. I want this question to be answered by my participants. To make the question required I'll place a check mark on the required question option.

If this was our only question, we could click the done button and the form would be complete. We need to add more survey questions. To add another question click on the add item button.

There are several question options we can add. For my next question I want them to enter a text response for where they attended my professional development. The text response option is the first one. Click on text.

As we build the form, the previous questions and the way they will appear can be seen. The professional development question and the pull down menu can be seen for the question we just created. Let's enter a question title for our next question.

I've entered the question title and some helpful information about the type of response I want. You'll see a small rectangular box with the words, their answer, inside. In the form they will see a similar box where they can enter their answer.

I want this question to be answered, so I will place a check mark on required question.

Click on the add item button and let's add another question to our form. Let's add a multiple choice option.

For this question I want them to answer either yes or no to my question.

I'll place a check mark to make this question required. Based on this answer I will tap into one of the strengths of Google forms. Based on their answer, I can ask them a different question. This is called branching. Place a check mark on the go to page based on answer option.

When we place the check mark, each answer option will have an option to go to a separate page. To go to another page we need another page.

Click on the add item button and select page break from the layout options.

A page will be created. Let's give this page a title and description.

The page we created has its own option to add question items. Click on the add item button.

Select the paragraph text option.

For this question I would like the participant to provide feedback on how the training could be useful. The paragraph text option gives them a larger box to enter more information. We've added a page for those that answered no. Let's add a page for those that answered yes.

This page will be for those that answered yes and it will also be our last page for the last question in our form. Click the page break option.

In this page I will thank them for taking the survey and ask one more question.

I'll select the paragraph text option.

For my last question I will ask what they found useful in the training. We're not done yet, now we need to link our pages to the question.

Return to the branching question and click once to edit the question.

Click on the page option for the yes response.

If they answered yes, they will be taken to page 3, which is the thank you page.

Click on the page option for the no answer.

Select page 2 from the page options.

If they answer yes they will be taken to the thank you page. If they answer no, they will be taken to page 2 to get feedback.

Each page also has a branching option. After page two, they will be taken to the next page, which is page three.

The last part of this form is the confirmation page. The confirmation page has generic information. We'll change that in a moment. Below the title are several options. After they submit this survey a link will be available for them to take the survey again. I only need them to take the survey once so I'll remove this option. I don't want to publish the results, but I do want them to edit their responses. This is useful because I often get people that will email me to let me know that they would like to submit the form again because they forgot to include something. If I allow them to edit their response, they get one more chance to add or remove information.

This is what my confirmation page options look like.

To preview the form click on the view live form option in the menu.

On the preview page we see our question with a list option and our question with a text answer option.

We see our yes or no question option and a button to continue to the next page based on the answer provided.

The progress indicator shows that this is the first third of all the questions. The progress bar will update as the questions are answered.

The preview is opened in a separate tab. To return to the editable form, click on the appropriate tab.

Go through the form and answer the questions. This is a good idea to always do with any form you create. Take the survey more than once so you can see how the branching works when you answer yes or no.

To edit the form, you can also click on the edit this form button on the right side.

When you went through the form the responses were recorded. In the menu you see a responses option with a number. This number shows the number of completed survey responses. To view the responses, click the view responses button.

A box will open so you can select the response destination. It automatically selects the new spreadsheet option. It will create this spreadsheet only once. Leave the options as they are and click create.

The spreadsheet will open and each response will be listed. The column headings are the questions in the survey.

To return to editing the form, click on the window or tab.

We can delete the test responses. Click on Responses and select delete all responses.

A confirmation message will display. Click OK to confirm.

To share a link to this form, click the view live form option in the menu.

Copy the address from the address bar and paste it anywhere you need it. With these basics you can now create some of your own Google forms.