Google Forms are a great way to collect data – but what do you do with all the data once you have it? This conundrum was especially poignant given the redefinition of the electronic portfolio in grade 2 this year, and my personal belief that tech is supposed to augment what is possible – not redefine that which you then have to go back to do on pen and paper. Fast forward a few weeks and I stumbled on a brilliant solution … the Form Publisher Add-On from Google.
To get started you need to open up Google Forms and then install the Form Publisher Add-On by following the steps below:
Once you are up and running Google has a great explanation for how to set it up.
The basics of it is that Form Publisher will create a Google Doc template that will be populated from the answers to the form questions, known as <<markers>>. Form publisher is also able to name the Google Doc files based on markers, for example <<student name>> to make life really easy.
By way of example, in grade 2 we decided to use a Google Form for goal setting conferences this year but instead of having kids write on paper, and then take pictures of it for their ePortfolio we wanted to create everything digitally from the start. As a side note, this is a post I wrote looking at ePortfolios through the SAMR framework of tech integration. In grade 2 we are striving for “modification” and trying to worker smarter and not harder, using tech to our advantage.
I summary, I love the ease of use of the Form Publisher add-on and I can definitely see myself using it regularly to curate data into an easy to read digital format. How about you?
Alex Lancia 
October 5, 2016 at 1:03 am
This was really useful. Did you tweet it?
I appreciated having this information in an easy to understand format. Thank you