Google Forms are for doing surveys and such. They are similar to SurveyMonkey and other online surveying sites. They can also be used for giving quizzes through Google Classroom.
Time
They are fairly quick and easy to set up. They do, though, take longer than just typing the questions into a Word document. If you are using many forms across multiple classes, they can be a pain to manage.
Access for Students and Parents
They are easy to share with students and parents. They can be linked through Google Classroom, email, or a web site so accessing them is fairly straightforward as well.
Updating and Modifying
You can update and modify them easily enough.
Longevity
They have been around for a while and should be as well. I don’t see much major changes coming to them.
Cost
Free for personal and school use.
My Usage
I use them when doing surveys and such. For example, I have the students fill out a questionnaire at the beginning of the year for me to get some background information about them. Students access the form through a link in Google Classroom. I don’t use them for tests or quizzes, though, as they are more difficult to use than a Word document and generate data that is hard to read and grade. It is awkward to access an individual student record and the spreadsheet generated from all the responses can be difficult to read.
Hints:
- Add a few questions that will help you organize the data received even though you already know the answer. For example, I asked you what session you were in. I can look up the what session you are in, but that data is in a different document. If the data is in this form, I can organize the response data using this question.