Showing posts with label remote learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label remote learning. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Create a Student Dropbox and Work Log with Google Tools

We have seen a number of examples where Google Data Studio has been used effectively to visualize and share data from a Google Form in multiple ways. Since Google Forms can capture the email address of the person filling out the form, the Filter by Email feature of Data Studio can be used to create a customized report with only the information that person submitted. Data Studio could also be used to display the same data for the teacher, or even for the public (if appropriate).
With remote learning happening in school districts all over the world, schools have taken advantage of technology tools to facilitate the delivery of learning materials and collection of student work. Many districts use Google Classroom or other Learning Management Systems to facilitate this process, but there may be situations where a teacher or school would want to collect and share student work in a different way.

I only recently learned (within the past year) that Google Forms has a File Upload question type, which requires the person filling out the form to be logged in to Google. It then places the uploaded files in a dedicated folder on the Form owner's Google Drive, and adds a column in the Form's Google Sheet results of links to each submitted file. Many folks have used Google Forms as a "drop box" of sorts since this feature was released. 

I started thinking about how we might use the File Upload/dropbox approach to Google Forms with Data Studio, especially if we were asking students to share materials that were visual images. I put together a sample Form which asks students to upload a picture based on a weekly assignment. We can then think about displaying the student-submitted responses and files in a variety of ways in Data Studio, but all with the same data source (the Form Sheet.)
  • A student-specific work log, which allows a student to view only his or her responses and submitted work, like a portfolio of sorts. 
  • A teacher- or class-specific work log, which allows the teacher to look at responses/work by student OR by assignment.
  • A public display of student work, which might display images and descriptions, either with or without student names. 
Here's the example Data Studio Report for your exploration. Each page of the report shows a different version of the report (in actuality they would be separate report files), but all use the SAME data source.


Please read through the About notes on the report itself for some of the trickier things about putting this one together. Let me know if you want to give this a try yourself - I'm happy to help!

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Collecting and Viewing Student Check-In Data

Wow! I realized it's been almost a month since my last blog post. So many things happening in the world these days as we try to reinvent education as we know it! I know many educators/schools are looking to collect information from students (and their families) as they learn remotely. I have previously written about how Google Data Studio is a great tool for visualizing data that comes from Google Forms.

If a school needed to 'take attendance' during remote learning, they might do so with a "question of the day" setup like this one that I recently created. It could also be used as just a fun daily check-in to build community or engage students. This report embeds the Google Form, and an automatically updated Question of the Day (from a Google Sheet) right into the report, so it's a one stop shop for collecting and displaying information from students.


When used with the Filter by Email feature of Data Studio, the results of a student survey could be used to display information back to a student, similar to the way Matt Heusmann, ESU 6 in Nebraska, used three different forms (check-in, journaling, and exit ticket) to populate this sample Data Studio Report.


You might also choose to check in on how students are feeling, which you could do with a tool similar to the Personality Quiz example created by Michael Howe-Ely.


Other data collected and visualized during remote learning might be usage data from a district's Learning Management System or family surveys providing feedback on the remote learning process. Jordan Benedict has an interesting blog article on 4 Types of Data to Collect During Distance Learning...what information are you collecting? Do you have any other valuable resources on this topic? Please share here on the blog, connect with me on Twitter @tiltondata, or drop me a line at tiltondata@gmail.com. Hope you are well and staying safe and sane!