SCRIPT ALERT!! formLimiter!

One of my favorite little scripts is formLimiter.  Have you ever given a Google Form quiz or test and ended up screaming at your students who refuse to turn in the damn thing at the end of class because they want more time? Have you ever sent a link of that Form to a student who missed the quiz/test and it takes them two weeks to a month before their responses end up in your spreadsheet because the student knew there would be no time limit to handing it in?  Have you ever used Flubaroo to batch grade an assignment only to have that one student tell you they just handed it in after you have already sent student scores back?  The reinforcement of deadlines in a Google Forms can be ever annoying. Well, with formLimiter, reinforcement of submission deadlines just got real.

Unlike most scripts, formLimiter is easy to set up for beginners in script using. It is pretty straight forward. After you install the script, select how you want to limit the responses to the form by time limit, total number of responese or spreadsheet cell value.   For me the time limit is most useful. I can select a date and time to set for deadline submission.  After set, the form will no longer accept submissions.  This is great mostly because it will train students to respect deadline submission time and allow the teacher to stay better organized.  You can even send a notification to editors when the time limit is reached.  For more on formLimiter or more scripts in Google Forms, check out http://cloudlab.newvisions.org/

Best,
#mrford#techsavvyteacher

3 Ways To Use Google Forms in Your BYOD ESL Classroom

3 Ways To Use Google Forms in Your ESL Classroom

• Tests/Quizzes
• Surveys
• Progress Check-Ins

Tests and quizzes. Google Forms is the easiest way to create online tests/quizzes for your BYOD or m-learning classroom. Choose from many colourful backgrounds and after naming your form, start creating right away.  Originally designed for surveys, using Google Forms as a test/quiz creator allows you to input videos, images, headers, and page breaks to make your form more interactive for your students.

Surveys.  Surveys are a great way to conduct peer evaluations on BYODs. Google forms lets you easily create evaluation surveys that are perfect for Public Speaking or Presentation classes.  Share the survey link via G mail or cross platform sharing apps like Whatsapp.  Surveys for peer evaluations allows students the power to critique their classmates and give valuable feedback.

Progress Check-Ins.  Using Google Forms to create survey Progress Check-Ins helps the teacher stay updated on the progress of student essays, presentations, or term papers.  Google Forms lets teachers create some pretty cool and personalized progress check-in forms that can easily be shared ans collected by Google.

Best,

#mrford#techsavvyteacher

Top 10 uses for the smartphone in the ESL Classroom for an ESL Instructor

Top 10 uses for the smartphone in the ESL Classroom for an ESL Instructor

1. Dictionary/Thesaurus- This is so obvious, but necessary for anyone working with international students. Apps like Dictionary.com and Oxford Dictionary of English are among the most commonly used.
2. Attendance- Apps like Foursquare an even FB are awesome for check in.  My favorite app however is Eval Safety Attendance which creates a specific QR Code for each student as you scan their phone to take attendance.
3. Quizzes- Using Google Forms is a great way to deliver quizzes to your students on their devices. Use a script/extension like Flubaroo to grade them and email scores to students.
4. Platforms for sharing-Whatsapp, Viber, Line, and even FB Messenger. These platforms are a great way to share pages, videos, photos, documents, etc.
5. Video conferences-Google Hangouts can be installed on both Android and Apple devices and is the best video conference sharing app on the market. Have up to 10 people in one conference.
6. Paper scanner- This is great not only for scanning pages of school books with very limited supply, but I can't tell you how many times students have asked to use the facility scanning machines to send something to their embassy.
7. ESL Podcasts-Podcasts are a great way to help lower level learners increase their vocabulary and listening comprehension skills.
8. Gradebooks- Engrade is a great way to enter grades while you are on the go and not in front of a laptop or desktop. Other apps like QuickGrader are just as good.
9. Scorative- Socrative is a killer app that makes your classroom more interactive for learning.  Assign  your quizzes as a team race game and watch how students get excited as their team scores and their rockets move forward in a 'Space Race".
10. Note Card Maker- There are several versions of note card makers available on the Android and Apple market. Have your students make note cards of their vocabulary words to help them study for their tests. Just remember to have them put away their phones during a test to ensure no cheating.

Best,

#mrford#techsavvyteacher

Using Google Forms to Create Quizzes for Your ESL Classroom

I've been a paperless teacher for over a year now and I honestly can't tell you the last time I actually had to stand over a copy machine. Thanks to Google, myself and tech-savvy educators across the world have ditched the traditional paper based Microsoft Word and opted for cloud services.  For me, the transition was almost invisible. I didn't even notice I had become a paperless teacher.  Features inside of Google Drive such as: Docs, Presentations, Spreadsheets, Forms and the Chrome App Store with their easy integration and organization have made it easier for educators to create, share, and store information like never before without the need for printing papers or documents.

Such is the case with Google Forms. Over the last few months, Google Forms has been my most used app inside Google Drive, especially when designing interactive TOEFL quizzes to be delivered to students over their phones or tablets.  Most ESL teachers I come across have NO idea that Google Drive even exists.  They are still avid users of Microsoft Word and rarely touch a Word product other that MW and PowerPoint.  They still consider Google to be just a search engine. During my presentations at conferences all across Georgia, I can't tell you how many times I still hear educators with over 20 years experience in the classroom scream, "WOW" when I show them how to use Google Drive products in the classroom.

Google Forms is originally designed to execute questionnaires, inventories, and surveys, but can also be used to design classroom quizzes featuring images and YouTube videos.  Along with a very famous script known as Flubaroo, theses classroom quizzes quickly become self grading and scores are stored in spreadsheets and emailed to students within minutes.  I first discovered Forms when as a student life coordinator, I wanted to make a small questionnaire for students exiting the institution I worked for.  After playing around with it, I quickly discovered that Forms could be used as a replacement for multiple choice tests we administered to our students who took their level up moving tests.  Not only was my discovery very effective, it eliminated the use for our outdated scan tron machine and the expensive papers that were piling up in our storage room.

The best part of Forms in my opinion, is that it provides transparency between students and teachers as the answer sheet can be attached to the students' email reported scores.   I usually review the quizzes immediately after they are scored and the answer sheet helps make it easier for students to recognize their mistakes.



Forms comes with a nice amount of colorful themes for its templates and includes a question types such as; Text, Paragraph Text for longer answers, Multiple Choice, Check Boxes, and Choose from a List. To find out more about Google Forms, try it yourself today! Just go to your Google Drive and select Form from the 'Create Menu.'

#mrford#techsavvyteacher