I recently presented at GBAPS Summer Learning Academy and shared how to create trading cards using Google Forms, Sheets, Slides and an add-on called Auto Crat.
The set up allows you or students to create trading cards for real or fictional people, real or fictional places, events, and objects. Through the use of a form participants can enter information about their person, place or things. Students could share their understanding about a character in a book, a historical or important figure in a field of study, or describe a location. Teachers can use the templates provided and modify them to match the topics that are most important to them, and match the content or ideas that fit their needs. These could be used as quick check ins, or more in depth demonstrations of understanding. The process takes a number of steps and several documents to complete. I have created a folder that you can access at gg.gg/tradingcards that includes all of the templates. You should make a copy of all of the documents to create your own trading cards. I am also including a video that goes through the steps. I apologize for the quality of the video. I will try to redo the video, but wanted to share it out as I had a few people asking for instructions on how to set up this activity. If you have questions, please let me know. I am more than willing to meet and go through the steps to help you set up your activity.
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Google Forms is a phenomenal tool. It does so many things well and Google continues to add more features to it. I am sure most are already familiar with Google Forms in one way or another. From a survey tool to creating Choose Your Own Adventure stories, Forms is a robust tool. Today I want to share the potential of forms to be used to create Scavenger Hunts.
I have used Forms to create learning adventures for those who have attended classes and training presentations. Google Forms allows you to add images, video directly from Youtube which only will work for 8th graders, but you can add links to videos from your Google Drive or other URLs if you add them as text. What turns a traditional Form into a scavenger hunt is the use of some lesser used Google Tools. These include data validation and changing the message at the end of a Google Form. Here is a link to Creating Educational Scavenger Hunts that I found to be very helpful in thinking about the potential for creating activities in your classroom. It also includes some examples of Forms that have been created for use with scavenger hunts. The examples shared in the linked post above include students moving around the classroom, or school building and examples where they would experience a learning adventure from their seats, but travel to locations around the internet seeking information to complete tasks.
The Process -
There are a number of steps in this process that I am attempting to outline below. As you begin creating your own, please contact me for any assistance that you need. I am happy to help. 1. Create your Form adding in questions and having the ones you want to make sure students get right in order to move forward, need to include data validation. See video below for more on how to use data validation.
2. Change the Confirmation Message at the end of the form. By changing this message you are able to direct students to the next clue or task. You are able to provide a location for the next task, and I like to add a secret code they will need in order to begin the next task. This secret code would need to be entered in the next form and verified through data validation on the new form they would open when they arrive at the next destination. See the video below for more information about changing the message.
Tip - If you are doing a seat based scavenger hunt, you can change the message to include the URL of the next Google Form. See step 3 for the notes on the URL you need to use.
3. Once you have created your forms and changed the confirmation message on each, it is time to set up the scavenger hunt. I like to have students move around the room or around the hallways around my classroom. I use QR codes and shortened URLs connected to the Forms to assist in this process.
When you have your form complete, click on the view icon, it looks like an eye. When you have this URL up, it should end in viewform, you will copy this URL and then go to goo.gl and paste the URL in the shortener. You will want to copy this short URL. Next click the 3 dots on the right of the link to create the QR code. As seen below. Open a Google Doc and paste the shortened URL and then copy and paste the QR code to that document. You will print and hang this document in the space you want students to access this. Why do I include both? Some devices may not have a QR code reader, but as long as they have a web browser they are able to participate in the activity. ADDING FILES, AUDIO AND VIDEO Another cool feature of forms that I have begun to include in my scavenger hunts and other activities is the use of adding files to forms. This is another way for students to demonstrate their learning. I recently found that you can have students add images or video to the form to demonstrate their learning. Your scavenger hunt could now include student videos where they explain a concept, or complete a task by demonstrating a skill. Here is a post about adding files to forms. Also adding video files to a form from your phone is shown below. Google has recently added a new feature to Google Forms. The ability to add or upload a file to Forms. The file upload is done by the respondent so they can share a multitude of file types like Google Docs, Spreadsheets, PDFs, videos and more. If you use Google Classroom, the uploading of files feature is something that you are likely already enjoying. If you are not using Classroom, this is a way to have students turn in work and have it organized in one place within your Google Drive. Whether you use Classroom or not, this feature in forms has advantages over submitting in Classroom. If you have several classes that are assigned the same task, this set up not only creates a folder of student work, it also creates a spreadsheet with all responses and files in one document. This makes accessing and assessing student work so much easier because you just open 1 spreadsheet and can see all of your students work. You don't have to look into several files, or open up multiple classrooms and navigate from one student's submission to another. Check out the short video below about how to use this feature. This video is just about adding this feature. If you haven't used Forms before, see the video on the bottom of this post. Full Google Forms Tutorial
I loved Choose Your Own Adventure Stories as a kid. I was in control of where the story went based on the choices I made. With Google Forms you are able to provide students with the opportunity to create their own CYOA stories.
While exploring the potential of Google Forms I came across the idea of Choose Your Own Adventure. The examples I saw were very simple stories with more choices than content. Here is a site with examples. I created a basic template for making a story adventure that you could have your students use to create original works of literature that provide the audience and abundance of choice and interaction. I included an example of the form and the template below.
The template includes some direction and a map of how the sections are connected to help you understand the path of the form. You can adjust the path and add sections that you want. I tried to create a structure that could be used for longer stories so you wouldn't have to do the set up, but could also have sections deleted to allow for shorter stories to be created for you or your students. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Pictures as QuestionsGoogle has provided the option of using Pictures of Videos above questions to help integrate more content into your activities or quizzes. You could have students look at a picture of a chart or watch a short video and then answer questions based on the image. This has been around for awhile and has been a great tool for assessing student understanding. Google has recently added a new feature with pictures. You can now add images as choices in your questions. If you create a multiple choice question you can have an image as the answer. I worked with elementary teachers last year and we wanted to create a quiz like this, but we weren't able to. We were looking to add images as choices for students who were beginner readers to help them demonstrate their knowledge. Google has now opened up this opportunity. This feature could be used in addition to the Quiz feature below to provide students with instant feedback. Creating Self Graded QuizzesGoogle has finally provided a way to create a self guided quiz. It allows you to create your quiz as many did before but now you don't have to use an additional program like Flubaroo to do the grading. I think this is a great tool for performing formative assessment and checking student understanding of content. I have included two videos that walk you through the set up. I have watched both and while they both demonstrate how to set up the form, they each have unique ideas or ways they present the information that may be beneficial to you. |
AuthorBen Brazeau Archives
August 2018
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