Google Forms & an iPod Touch

As a Technology Integrator for our Middle School, I've been "playing" (isn't that what us GEEKS do?) with an iPod Touch and Google Docs to see how they can support each other. Most of all, I'm trying to see how the "forms" part of the spreadsheet can help in a classroom.

Here's what I've come up with so far - First tried forms with a simple survey to the teachers about what type of computer they want when the capital outlay process rolls out next year - desktop or laptop, and any special considerations for that machine. Initial experience very promising, but not perfect. Biggest mistake was that, not wanting to send it from my gmail account, I mailed the form to myself and then distributed from there on my school account. The form was in the forwarded email, so after staff filled out the form, but when they "submitted," it took them to the "real" form on the web, so they had to do it all again. Next time, I'll simply include the link and save them some time and effort. Glad it was a simple form.

Next experiment is with classroom observation and the iPod Touch. Created a form for observing student posture in 6th keyboarding class, and sent it to myself on my gmail account, which comes up on my "Touch." What I wanted was to walk around the room, enter info into the form and have it automatically fill out the spreadsheet with my observations. Then, enter grades at the end of the class, print for documentation, and be done with it.

The first form had "drop down" choices which, in theory, are good, but don't play well with a "Touch" because it will automatically submit the form before you are ready. So I went back and changed to check boxes with one required box that simply says "done." That gave me control of when it actually was submitted. That worked well, except that I had to keep going back to the email, click the link, and go to the form each time. Haven't tried embedding in a webpage yet - that's still to come. That may make it easier.

Note to Google Docs folks - Don't bury the published form so far into the document - make the finished form come up as maybe a subset of the document itself so it will show up on mobile sync applications for easy access. Or, maybe an application specifically for forms that support a Google Doc. This would really help.

If you have any suggestions for me, please chime in. I'd love to hear them. Thanks.