Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teachers Lounge
Google Forms for Escape Rooms, Auto Grading, and Beyond
Beyond the excitement and thrill, Google Forms holds the power to revolutionize the educational experience. We're exploring how to use it to make learning more interactive and engaging, and yes, that includes designing your very own escape room. Are you tired of manual grading? We've got you covered with answers, and data collection techniques that can provide insights into your students' interests. For those with access to Chromebooks, we'll share some tips on how to maximize learning experiences. So, buckle up and get ready to experiment with Google Forms, and watch as it transforms your classroom into an interactive wonderland of learning.
Several years ago, our extended family of six went down to Hilton Head to visit my brother and we decided to drive over to Savannah one day and do an escape room the Haunted Escape Room. The guy told us there was only 15% chance that we'd get out. And we got out through a secret passageway in a bookshelf. What if I told you, as a substitute teacher, you could turn your classroom into an escape room and you're not even going to need any wood or nails or glue or anything like that. What if I also told you you could learn something that would make you the envy of even the teachers around you. Well, guess what? Today we're going to talk about Google Forms, because you can do all that with Google Forms. Greg Collins, substitute Teachers Lounge.
Speaker 1:All right, guys, let me tell you this as just kind of a funny story before we get started. You know you taught a long time when you retired. I'm referring to my wife now. She taught for 26 years, I think it is, and it's ironic because the volleyball team is having a party on this Sunday in fact today and they wanted my wife to come. So I talked her into coming because many of them had in the fifth grade. But on the flip side of that Friday night, we had our first scrimmage and I'm training some of the girls how to keep volleyball score, so I helped her keep score. She did a good job. This girl is a freshman and she introduced me to her mother afterwards and her mother her mother had actually been one of my wife's students as well several years ago, so if that's not a sure sign of getting owed, I don't know what is All right.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about Google Forms today. I promised you these last three weeks before we get started to school now two weeks we were going to talk about some tools that you really need to know. Last week, I hope, you started working on your Bitmoji and your Google Slides for your virtual classroom, so to speak, but today it's Google Forms and all the little tricks you can do with that. Listen, guys, I will tell you this If you're one of those that isn't going to Use anything technology wise, I really feel kind of sad for you. I'm gonna assume that's not you or you wouldn't be listening to this podcast, but you got to learn how to use the technology you have to. It makes me cringe now when I hear people say I just don't like technology. I mean, what for? I mean, if you don't like technology, then get rid of your stove and your refrigerator and your microwave and all that kind of thing. It's just a way to make things more convenient.
Speaker 1:Today, we're gonna talk about escape rooms. Now, I'm not gonna talk to you in detail about how to do this, but I'm gonna talk more about why you should do this Now. The details are in one of my podcasts back on December 13th of 2020. It's when I first talked about this. It's when I first started using escape rooms in the classroom. Now it's not gonna be taking kids to rooms and they gotta break out of rooms by using clues, but it is gonna be using clues during that.
Speaker 1:Google's form In fact, it is a quiz type form that most likely you'll be using. You can design one from scratch. You can get on the internet and find templates for escape rooms all over the place. You can go to teachers paid teachers, which I actually did, because there's some formats involving locks and stuff like that that I wanted to use. I did want to design some from scratch. Here's the way it works in Google Forms Basically the idea behind this game and first of all, let me say this Ideally, you've got access to the school's internet service to the point of you being able to log in as a substitute or, better yet, you have a way to send this Google form to all your students.
Speaker 1:Now that's the perfect way to do it, because then they can do it competitively. You can time them individually. If you don't have that, try to at least. In fact, you'll have to get access to the internet under like a substitute log in in passwords so that you can project up on the screen or maybe your teacher left that open for you, for whatever reason and you can do it through her log in and you design your escape room. And basically, what it's gonna do is this you'll ask a question, they will have to answer the question and they have several different answers to choose from. They have to choose one. Basically, the way it works is if they choose the wrong answer, they won't get to go to the next question.
Speaker 1:Now, so far it sounds a little bit like just a general test. But you're gonna put nice pictures in there, like maybe you're go with a pirate motif, or again, I'm mentioning Barbie and Mario this year because those are popular movies this year. Maybe go with without violating copyright laws, go with something to that effect, but it's a way of moving just like in a real escape room. It's a way of moving from a room to a room by using questions on the Google form. They will have to answer it. You can put in variations of answers and again, I'll refer you to the podcast on December 13th 2020, when we explained it in more detail and you're for your video oriented.
Speaker 1:You can search for Escape rooms in the classrooms or Google form escape room. That's probably the best thing to search for and it will provide you with some details on that. Whoever gets through first in the classroom, maybe you're gonna give them some kind of prize, or maybe it's just a way to get them to know you. The idea is fun. Maybe you have 10 minutes at the end of class. You can throw this escape room. You can timer start it and say go. Basically, one way you could do it I've seen it done with locks and there's a way to make it look like you're unlocking locks. And again, I'll refer you to that old podcast so we don't have to waste quite as much time explaining it here. You might have codes. Each page gives them a letter to build a word, if they then have to enter in at the unscramble and enter in at the end and that will unlock their escape room. But it's really a lot of fun. In fact it's a lot more fun than I'm making it sound. But just go into Google form escape rooms. You might wanna put classroom in there too and you'll see a lot of examples. These have been very successful. The teachers pay teachers. There's people that I think sell these in bundles. They create a whole bunch of them and sell them in bundles. It's probably a good, decent supplemental income for them. So you're gonna learn Google forms from one standpoint so that you can create these escape rooms and the kids are gonna love that.
Speaker 1:Secondly, you need to learn Google forms to keep you from having to manually grade papers. I'll admit it, I loved the times that I was long-term substitute teaching, but I cringe every time at the thought of manually grading papers. It was terrible. I mean, maybe I would have a hundred in one night and maybe there'd be 50 questions, multiple choice questions, and maybe I would have to go through and I wouldn't do it test by test. I would maybe memorize the first three questions and go through all 50 and check those. Go back. You know you are not human. Unless you make a mistake, then I would have to say everybody, double check the answers in your test to make sure I haven't made a mistake in grading. I usually always had. I hate manual grading. Well, guess what? There's some beauty in Google forms in that regard and in fact, I've actually taught some of the teachers some shortcuts on using Google forms, and there's a bunch of them out there. Now, in this case, the details on how to do that. I'm gonna give you generalities here, but I'm much more specific in the podcast back on September 18th of 2021. Basically a couple of years ago. It's when I explained this. But the great thing about Google forms is when you just I mean you can just put in Google forms, that will bring you up templates.
Speaker 1:One of the types of Google forms that you can create is called a quiz form, and you can do it in any method of quiz. You want Multiple choice short answer. It's sometimes it's tricky with short answers. It's maybe better to do one word answers, because the system has to be able to confirm they entered the right answer. So if there's a various different number of words that they could use in their answer. It's gonna be hard for Google forms to nail it down. If it's a one word answer, it will be fine. Give me, for instance, if you ask a question, what is the season of the year that begins each September? Well, there's two answers to that it's autumn or fall. And when you're designing your quiz, you'll have to put down autumn, fall as two acceptable answers for that question, or it might mark it wrong when it really isn't wrong.
Speaker 1:But the beauty of this especially with multiple choice on these Google Forms if you can legally download some images. I did this with a medical class when we were studying bones and all kinds of things I could copy and paste from the internet or from some other school source into this test quiz and then they can look at the picture and answer their question. Here's the beautiful thing about the grading part If you're designing a quiz for your students. I had to do a lot of those and in fact I would ask the teacher each time she had given me a paper test, I would ask her do you mind if I convert this to a Google Form? And she said please go ahead. She liked that idea, so I was able to get some of her tests converted over to Google Forms selfishly, because I didn't want to manually grade them. And that's the beautiful thing about Google Forms when you design your test and you load it in their Google Classroom, they just click to open the test.
Speaker 1:There's various security things you can load. There's various. You can give them the option of taking the test more than once. I know some teachers that do that, especially math, because there's a lot of teachers out there that, even if you have to take the test twice and say, well, if you learned more the second time you took the test than the first time, that's what we're here for is learning. So you design your Google Form, your Google Quiz Form, you give them a test and the beautiful thing is, two things happen. Some of them might be traumatic, for that matter. You can design it so that the student actually knows how many they got right as soon as they finish their test and you already have the grades calculated.
Speaker 1:Google Forms does that for you. No more manual grading. Now, even that is good enough, but when you can now take that and enter it into, let's say, infinite classroom, where you had a tremendous shortcut in being able to do that, no more manual grading. But guess what? It's even better. There's a way to link Google Forms with infinite classroom. Link it, which means after they take their test, they're already graded. You confirm that it's ready to transfer. You hit a button, it loads it in infinite campus. So, honestly, when they leave that classroom, you could have their grades loaded in infinite campus in less than five minutes. It's amazing. So that's another great thing about learning Google Forms To be able to discuss it intelligently with the teachers you work with. I'm thinking I'd probably use this most in a long-term teaching situation, but it's a great use of Google Forms and, again, that September 18, 2021 episode will give you more details about how to use it in that manner.
Speaker 1:The last one I'll mention for Google Forms and this can be very specifically for substitute teachers, because you can design data collection tools and really you just have to follow the directions when you open your Google Form. Again, when you first go to Google Forms, it's going to start you with templates. I think the party invite template may work. You can design one from scratch Party invite template. When you pull it up, it's going to ask you what is your name? They have a space to enter their name. They're going to ask the question can you come to this party? What can you bring? That type of thing. But you can convert those questions over to something that collects data for you.
Speaker 1:For instance, let's say you just want to play a get acquainted game with the students and you send them a Google form to fill out, and what they'll do? They'll answer the questions. Make it as specific as possible so that the data makes sense. Maybe you're going to ask them what your favorite subject is and they'll put down a subject. Maybe you give them multiple choice so that they there's not such a random number of answers. Then you might be.
Speaker 1:You know what state were you born in. You know some of them might even be of an international variety. So maybe you put down international or maybe you put down the continents, like Europe or Asia or something. Mexico, you know, not Mexico, it's not a continent, but North America, south America, all that kind of thing. You could collect data about students and sometimes it's fun for them because the instant they fill out their data form that you've created on Google forms, the data can be converted to bubbles that pop up on your screen in the front of the class and then it'll say 12 students are from Kentucky, 13 of the students were born in Canada, stuff like that, and it's really kind of fascinating to go through that. And you too design that through Google forms.
Speaker 1:So I think Google forms is an excellent tool. I'm one of those that when I see some kind of new software, especially for educators, I like to play around with it, see if it's something fun that we can use in the classroom. The more interactivity you can put in a classroom rather than just handing them a sheet of paper that you want them to fill out, the better you can make it an interactive you know, chromebook perhaps type thing. The better off you are. Believe me, I know it In my five years of substitute teaching the more you can get away from paper, I feel like, the better off it is. So we learned how to design an escape room. We learned how to completely get rid of manual grading using quiz forms in Google forms and we learned how to collect some data to make class just a little bit more interesting and let your students see what kind of mixture of math fans, english fans, that type of thing that you have in the classroom. So Google forms is the tool for the week.
Speaker 1:It is August 6, 2023. We've got one more tool to go. Next week, then, by Cracky, we're all going back to substitute teaching. I hope, I hope and pray that I get a full load even that first week. I'm hoping to get a lot of opportunities at the high school now that I'm helping you know, helping coach volleyball in the evenings, because that way it'll be a lot more convenient for me. So good luck to you. Play around with Google forms. Really, you can't do any damage. So play around with the Google forms and I'll think you'll find other stuff as well that I didn't even mention today.
