Google Forms and Add-ons

Poking through potential tools for assessing and grading student knowledge, I've found that Google Forms is an excellent tool for crafting tests and quizzes, whether they be formal or informal. It's intuitive and easy to use, and it provides for a variety of different structures and possibilities. 

For example, it is extremely easy to come up with a quick test of short answer questions - all you have to do is type in the questions and you're done. You don't have to worry about typing in the right answer or anything like that (that can be done using some Google Add-ons.) Just send the link to the students, have them take it, and then export into an excel spreadsheet within Google docs - all that with a few button clicks. 

This would be great for simple comprehension quizzes to check up on whether students are reading the required material, or for an easy poll on how they enjoy the book or what they are struggling with. Easy to implement in an English classroom. 

And not just in the English classroom - Google Forms could be great for contact information and attendance. (Writing this blog post actually reminded me of a Google Form I needed to fill out for a play I'm in - emergency contact info.)

Regarding the Google Add-ons, tools like Flubaroo make grading assignments easy. All that you have to do is download the add-on, create a key, set the question point values, and press grade. It formats it within the excel document for you, and it's extremely clear. The only issue is grading partial credit. That is something I still haven't figured out how to do, though it looks like you can "grade by hand," which allows you to do some of those things yourself. Not convenient, but it works.

I did some searching for other grading add-ons and I found Super Quiz, which though has a few more options than Flubaroo, is much more complicated. It requires much more of a knowledge of excel, whereas with Flubaroo all you have to do is click a few buttons. I think I'll be sticking with that, as I want ease and simplicity. I imagine anything more complicated will be graded by hand. 

All these tool are great and helpful - and I get wait to give them more of a try!