Google Forms has Customizable Banners and New Banner Choices

Google Forms has been going through some serious upgrades.  I've been posting about them for weeks.  One upgrade I really like is the ability to add your own custom banners to the top of your Google Forms.  I would suggest creating one for all of your Forms.  That way, your students or colleagues will recognize it as yours.  You can even create a little logo to use with it.  Here is one that we created for our future surveys.  It is a graphic that is 500 pixels wide and 150 pixels tall.

You can add your banner by going into the "Change Theme" button.  Then looking at the theme list and noticing you can now customize themes.  Click "customize".  Then open the "Header Image" area and click "Choose Image".  You can then upload your own banner.

You may also notice that there are a lot of new banner choices that Google has provided.  They are even arranged in topics.  Some cool seasonal ones are available for your Form use.

These upgrades should make data collection fun and interesting.  Give them a try!

Office files Converted with New Google Drive

There are times when you may want to upload and convert one of your current Office files so that you can share or work with colleagues on the document.  You can upload and convert Office files directly into Google format so that you can share and collaborate or even publish.  Below is a tutorial on how you can upload those files in the New version of Google Drive.  Here is a link to a version for the Old Google Drive.

Google will upload and convert Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.




Google will also convert so that you can download files back out of Google into other formats.  That way you can send to people who need a specific format or don't have a Google Account (Boo!)

Give this a try!

New Google Form Add-ons - Choice Eliminator

Google recently added "Add-ons" as a feature of Google Forms.  There are some great options to check out.  Here is a picture of what is currently available.  Check them out.

Choice of Google Form Add-ons

One that I am really happy to see is "Choice Eliminator".  It takes choices out of a list of multiple-choice, checkbox, or list entries.  That way if one submitter selects an option, it is no longer available to people who have not taken the Form yet.  I see this as an outstanding option for people that schedule appointments.  The choices disappear so you don't double-book.  Here is a website with tutorial of how to use Choice Eliminator - click here.

Create your Form.  Go to the Add-ons store in the Add-ons menu and select the Choice Eliminator and try it out.  This will be awesome for teachers scheduling conferences.  Too bad it didn't come out a month ago.

New "Send Forms" Options in Google Forms

Google has been putting in some very functional upgrades lately.  If you are a Google Forms user, you've probably noticed quite a few.  I really like Google Forms and think teachers will love it.  I noticed a few new changes on the Send Forms button information lately.

I noticed that Google now provides a URL shortener on the Send Form window (fig. A).  It automatically will shorten those extremely long URLs to one with the "goo.gl" address.  This is great for people that are sharing the link without having to go somewhere else to find it - like posting your link on a website or email.  Great way to get a group to use their own devices to take a survey or answer some questions.  How about having students use their smartphones - YEA!

Also, Google has added a button that will give you the embed code (fig. B).  This is awesome, so you can embed the survey right on your webpage.  That way, the user doesn't have to leave the page they are on to go take a Form.

Besides the changes, you can still post your link on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook, or even email the people you want to take the Form.

Google Forms are an outstanding way to collect information from people and organize it in an easy way to analyze.  Give them a try.

New Choices in Google Forms

A couple of new features have shown up in Google Forms in the Google Apps for Education domains.  Form creators will notice that two new buttons show up in the top selection of settings.

First, there is a new "Only allow one response per person" box.  This box will allow the survey to only collect one response per "signed-in" user.  Since all of the students have accounts, a "one vote" restriction can be activated.  This is great so that the responders don't "stuff the ballot box."  This would be great for classroom voting?

Second, there is a "Shuffle question order" box.  This box will shuffle the questions on each page of the form.  This might be helpful when creating online assessments.  You might also consider putting all of the identifying questions on a page, then putting the questions of the form on a second page or set of pages.  That way, the identifying questions stay together and the rest of the questions can "jumble up."

It would be nice if you could create the identifying questions and fix their location - but Google will probably figure that out quickly.

Give these new features a try.

Video of New Google Drive Share Window

Here is a video demonstrating and explaining the NEW Google Drive Share window.  It explains changes seen here.

New Google Share Window

Google has changed it's share window for users.  When you click your familiar blue Share button, you'll see something new.

This makes it very easy to share with other people, but there are a few new features you should be aware of.  First, if you want to change your visibility settings, click the "Get sharable link" at the top-right corner of the window (see below).  This will allow you to change the Global access settings of your document.

If you want to see the old format of sharing with People, click the Advanced link in the bottom-right corner of the page (see above).  It will open the page to the more traditional sharing window.

I think this streamlined share window will become very easy to use.  As with most Google changes, it is different and will take some getting used to.  I hope I get used to it quickly.