Copyright

Copyright 2014 by Alex Reyes

Cover design by Alex Reyes
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of

this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.

Every effort has been

made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in
this book is provided without warranty, either expressed or implied. Neither the author, nor any distributors will be held liable for
any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.The author has endeavored to provide trademark
information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, the author
cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

2014
i

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.

Login to your Google account and click on the Google Apps

menu.

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.

10

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.

11

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.

12

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.

13

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.

14

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.

15

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.

16

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.

17

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.

18

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.

19

Return to the branching question and click once to edit the

question.

Click on the page option for the yes response.

20

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.

21

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.

22

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.

23

This is what my confirmation page options look like.

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

24

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.

25

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.

26

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.

27

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.

28

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.

29

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.

30

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.

31