Friday, January 29, 2010

How to Publish a Quiz Using Google Docs

This is a post born out of a few conversations that I had this week with a few of my colleagues. All of the conversations centered around the time-consuming task of grading quizzes. In each conversation I mentioned that I've been using Google Forms for giving short multiple choice quizzes. I create the quizzes in Google Forms, post them on my classroom blog, students take the quiz on my blog, and their answers appear in an easy-to-grade spreadsheet. Below I've embedded a slideshow with directions for creating and embedding quizzes using Google Forms, but here are a few points that should be emphasized.

1. Make sure the first question is "student name." Otherwise you won't know who submitted which answers.
2. You can mix question types (multiple choice, short answer, paragraph) but if you have too many types and too many students, the spreadsheet can become difficult to navigate.
3. When embedding the form into a blog, make sure you edit the width to fit within your blog's main column. You can use the same principles of editing the size of a YouTube video for editing the width of a spreadsheet.

31 comments:

SSB said...

Hi,
Using Google Forms for a Quiz works great and gives great instant feedback. I have a template shared on Google with the instructions. I make a short url (TinyURL.com) and provide it in the class for the quiz . If you are giving the same in several classes, I copy the original, mix up or change a few questions.

Thank you again for such a great and informative site!

Link to Google Template
Template Self Graded Test NO Waiting SSB
http://spreadsheets.google.com/gform?key=tiwA3pk3QRQyJxvZ2kDvqOw#

Sally Boone said...

Thanks. I had heard quizzes could be done on google forms and now I know how to make them. Thanks for your help!

ericmstauffer said...

This is a great idea. We use the spreadsheets and forms to keep our hours working with teachers but never thought about using it this way. I'm going to share it with the other instructional technologists.

aunttammie said...

I tried this on my Wordpress blog, but all I get is a line saying "loading...." and it never does. Ideas?

Mr. Byrne said...

Aunttammie,
I by no means a WordPress expert, but one mistake that some people make is trying to copy the embed code into a visual editor. Make sure you are using the html editor.
I'm posting this question in my GTA discussion group and hopefully one of the WordPress users in that group can lend some insight.
Richard

Amy P. said...

Richard,
A quick and easy way to grade the quizzes is to change the background color of the columns with rules. That way you quickly see how many are incorrect. Here is the link to a practice one without student names so you can see what I mean.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ApMVF728IdX5dGZ3bW1idXRMbXQ0cmpQMFhzZmg3OWc&hl=en

neha said...

How do you delete the google form quiz from your website?

neha said...

How do you delete the quiz from your website?

Mr. Byrne said...

Amy,
Thank you for the tip. I've used that method too. I left it out because I wanted to make this tutorial as simple as possible.

@NEHA,
To remove the quiz you can do one of two things.
1. Remove the html from your blog.
2. In the "sharing options" on the form select stop publishing.

Jorge González Alonso said...

Thanks for the information. Using Google Forms is a great idea

Dr. Frank Buck said...

I have been working on this same concept. With a second sheet (which contains formulas), the answers are marked correct/incorrect, the student average calculated, and item analysis (percentage of answers correct on each item) is calculated.

bpovlins said...

This is a great idea, and definitely a useful tutorial. What are your thoughts on grading quizzes when students don't have computers to use all the time? Like you mentioned in the discussions with your colleagues, grading quizzes is a task that takes up a big chunk of teachers' time. Any ideas on how to cut down on that time with paper-based quizzes?

Stephanie said...

Be careful if you are giving the quiz to more than one class that the form isn't auto filling after the first class.

SSB said...

Hi,
I have a couple of questions on the template.

Using your Google Account
Go to Docs>Create New>From Template

Search Self Graded

It will appear as a template

There are 2 use the one with my name.

Enjoy!

Sally Boone said...

I did it!!! Well, almost! I made a survey for the teachers at my school and added it to my blog. I even resized it so it all fit just right! My husband took the survey so I could see some results on the spreadsheet. I am anxious to see the teacher's responses. Thanks for your help. You made this soooo easy!

Chan Bliss said...

This post came at a great time. I am part of a group that is creating a district wide elementary art assessment. I would like all art teachers to be involved (about 150 in the district). I am playing around with Google doc as a way to do this. I started with this, http://bryant.mysdhc.org/teacher/0527demo/artquestion
From this I would like to create a page that allows the teacher then to rate the questions. For that I came up with this. http://bryant.mysdhc.org/teacher/0527demo/rate
The problem is that if all the teachers submit questions I would have to cut and paste over 300 lines from the first spread sheet to the second form. I have been looking for a way to convert the first spreadsheet into the second form. Do you know of a more elegant way to do this?

Tim Hunt said...

I can't help thinking that you would get better results by using a real VLE like Moodle, but I guess if your school does not provide that, you would have to install it yourself, whereas Google is just there.

neildb said...

Thanks for the great idea. I'm using this for some business English courses I'm teaching. Still having a few problems with Wordpress, so just sending my students a link to click on.

Nish The Teach said...

I created a quiz using Google Docs after reading this. At my school I reserved computer lab time and give the students the link and had them take the quiz. I did what a previous poster said about changing the colors of the cells by setting the rules. It made grading my whole class so easy and effortless. Here is a link to my quiz if anyone wants to check it out, which is embedded in my classroom blog. http://mrmohammedsroom.blogspot.com/p/quizzes_12.html

Shaughn O'Neal said...

I am having trouble. I followed the directions in the slide show above. I assumed the quiz would come up as a link instead the full quiz comes up on the blog. What am I doing wrong?

Mr. Byrne said...

Shaughn,
It sounds like you're embedding the html for the full quiz. If you want just a link to show up, just copy the url that appears at the bottom of your form when you're in the editing mode. Then just post that link on your blog/ website.
Richard

Kristin said...

I have actually used Google Docs to create a quiz in class and had students fill out a survey afterward. The students really liked being able to type their answers to essay questions rather than write it out with a pencil and paper. Plus it makes it very easy to grade for me! :)

More About Sean said...

Thanks for the game-changing tool. Love the interweb. Love sent to you from a stranger!

Sean

Brent said...

Google Docs is a great tool for quizzes, tests & surveys! I love it!

Dr. Frank Buck said...

Here is a post which shows what I have put together. There is both a link to a sample test and a link to the spreadsheet that the teacher would see. All questions are graded, a score for the the student calculated, and item analysis performed on each question.

arasyi said...

@Nish The Teach
how did you manage to get the answers set to blank when the page is refreshed?

arasyi said...

Nish The Teach
how did you manage to reset the answer to blank once user go to your page?

arasyi said...

Nish The Teach
how did you manage to reset the answers to blank when user go to your page?

acfay24 said...

I want to give a vocabulary quiz. I want to use Google Docs, but how do I police the students so that they don't look up the answers?

Is there a way to print a quiz made on Google docs so students can take it pencil and paper?

Angie

Mr. Byrne said...

Angie,

Yes, you can print the form. But to make it a little more visually appealing I'd probably just copy the questions into a document.

As for policing students to make sure they're not looking things up, I don't worry about it. I try to write questions that can't easily be Googled by students.

Richard

GreatScott said...

I love this info-- I really need to get up to speed on all the powerful ways google docs can be used. I have a question though: I want to create a spelling/usage quiz that students take online. The students would need to hear the words (i've made an mp3 of me reading the list) and then be able to type in the answers for each one. I'd like for it to not do auto spell check/auto underline of misspelled words (since it is a spelling test). Like Angie's previous post about vocab quizzes, I don't want them to be able to look up the correct spelling (at least from within the quiz) as they are taking the quiz. Any ideas on how to do this?

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