Create Rubrics and Email Grades from a Google Spreadsheet

Online Rubric is a Google Spreadsheets Add-on that enables to you create rubrics, enter scores, and email scores to students all from one place. Online Rubric provides very clear instructions for each step of the processes of creating a roster sheet, creating a rubric, and emailing grades to students.

To start using the Online Rubric Add-on open the Add-ons menu in a blank Google Spreadsheet. Select "get Add-ons" and search for Online Rubric.

Once you've given Online Rubric permission to run on your Spreadsheet there are three basic steps you need to complete. The first step is to create a roster. Rosters are made by entering student's names and email addresses (optional). The second step is to actually create your rubric. Unlike some online rubric services, with the Online Rubric Add-on you can build as many rubric cells as you like. You can assign any point values that you want to use for each rubric cell. When you're ready to enter grades you will use your roster sheet to enter point values for each rubric cell. To email grades simply select "email grades" from the Online Rubric Add-on.

Applications for Education
As you can collaborate on Google Spreadsheets, Online Rubric could provide teaching teams with a way to collaborate on the development of rubrics. It also provides an opportunity to share in the responsibility of scoring assignments.

I have never been a big fan of using canned rubrics for grading as I find many of them to be too prescriptive for my liking. That said, I realize that many people like them and use them frequently. For people who like to use rubrics or have to use them (as I did for a while about five years ago) the Online Rubric Add-on does provide a good way to build rubrics, score assignments, and send grades.

Create a Lab / Room Scheduler in Google Sheets

Lab Scheduler is a neat Google Sheets Add-on that enables you to easily create and maintain a lab or room reservation system for your school. It is designed for schools that use a labeled block schedule (for example, the high school in my district uses "period 1" through "period 8" even though there are only four periods in a given day).

Once you have added Lab Scheduler to your Google Spreadsheet it will walk you through the process of creating blocks of time and lab/room space in your spreadsheet. You can set your Lab Scheduler to maintain a preview of as many dates as you like. The preview is what people will see when they want to make a reservation. Share the spreadsheet with your staff and they can reserve a block of time in it.

Applications for Education
Lab Scheduler could provide your school with a good way to keep track of who is using which rooms when. If you have multiple rooms to schedule, you could create a few spreadsheets with Lab Scheduler then put all of those sheets into one shared Google Drive folder.

How to Create a Jeopardy-style Game in Google Spreadsheets

As I do every year, I am taking this week to relax, recharge, and ski with friends. While I'm away I will be re-running the most popular posts of the year. This was the most popular post in November, 2014.

Around this time last year I shared a neat Google Spreadsheets script called Flippity. Flippity was originally designed to help you create flashcards through Google Spreadsheets. This morning Steve Fortna informed me that you can now use Flippity to create Jeopardy-style gameboards through Google Spreadsheets. In the video embedded I demonstrate how to use Flippity to create a Jeopardy-style gameboard.

How to Convert Google Spreadsheet Cells Into a Google Document

Earlier this week I shared a great Google Spreadsheet Add-on called Save As Doc. Save As Doc allows you to select a set of cells from a spreadsheet and have the information in those cells converted into an easy-to-read Google Document. I had a few people ask questions about how it worked so I made the following video demonstration of how to use Save As Doc.


Applications for Education
I love to use Google Forms to create and deliver quizzes to students. The problem with that has always been that when I start to add-in short answer or essay questions, the spreadsheet of responses becomes unwieldy and difficult to read. Save As Doc can solve that problem for me by allowing me to select the cells containing my students' short answer responses to turn into a document that I can easily print, read, and grade.

I'll cover topics like this one and many others in my upcoming webinar series Getting Ready for GAFE. Getting Ready for GAFE is now available with a graduate credit option!

Turn a Set of Spreadsheet Cells Into Easy to Read Documents

Save As Doc is a free Google Spreadsheets Add-on that enables you to select a series of adjacent cells and turn them into an easy to read Google Document. The Save As Doc Add-on takes just a minute to install. Once installed select the Add-on from your "Add-on's" drop-down menu and click "start." After clicking "start" you can choose a set of cells or all cells to be converted into a Google Document. The document will appear in your Google Drive dashboard (it might take a minute or two to appear if you have selected a large set of cells) where you can then view it, edit it, or download it as a PDF.

Applications for Education
I love to use Google Forms to create and deliver quizzes to students. The problem with that has always been that when I start to add-in short answer or essay questions, the spreadsheet of responses becomes unwieldy and difficult to read. Save As Doc can solve that problem for me by allowing me to select the cells containing my students' short answer responses to turn into a document that I can easily print, read, and grade.

I will be covering topics like this one and many others in my new class Getting Ready for GAFE starting in October. Graduate credit is now available for this class!