FitMet

By John Kruse

Recently, I learned about Google Docs, a free service offered by Google that allows for the creation of simple surveys using a form.  Simply sign up for a Google account and you will have access to a few online applications that are very similar to Microsoft Word, Excel & PowerPoint.

A form is an easy way to create a nice looking  survey that you can have students complete on the Internet.  Once you’ve created the survey, Google Docs gives you a Web address to click on.  This address takes you to the survey.  If you have a school Web page, all you need to do is post a link on your page directing students to the survey.  The best part is that you can have students complete the survey for homework by directing them to your Web page.

When students complete the survey, their answers appear in a spreadsheet as soon as it is submitted.  This spreadsheet is stored in your Google Docs account and operates very much like Microsoft Excel.

There are a few things I really like about this technology.  First, you can have students complete an assessment without having to sacrifice activity or movement time.  Second, you can save a few trees.  And third,  you can save yourself the headache of carting out a bunch a clipboards, pencils and papers.  I’m not saying that this technology should completely replace good old paper and pencil assessments.  If used wisely, it certainly has its place and can be used to inform instruction.  One drawback is that you may not get the response rate you are looking for.

If you design the survey with some forethought, you can even create a few questions using a likert scale.  For example, “On a scale from one to five with five being best, how much did you learn from the lesson today?”  By assigning a number to the answer, you can get an average by manipulating the numbers in the spreadsheet.  When surveying depth of knowledge pertaining to a concept, I create questions that are short answer or open-ended.  These answers also wind of up in the spreadsheet and you can easily scan them to see just how much learning is occurring in class.

In conclusion, Google Docs is a technology that has some awesome potential for physical educators.  I see that it has the potential to really increase my ability to inform my instruction based on student responses.  I would encourage you to sign-up for a Google account and experiment with the applications within Google Docs.  With a little imagination, you can come up with some really innovative ways to use this technology.

A final thought.  I’ve created a simple survey using a Google form so you can see a sample.  Please click on the link below and give us some feedback about this blog.

Click here to go to the survey.