Collecting Parent Info at Back to School Night/Todd Sinclair's EduWin

As you are preparing for Back to School Night, one of the forms you might be thinking of making is a sign-in sheet to collect information from families. I always liked doing it electronically. This way, any information I choose to include gets automatically uploaded to a file in my GAFE and has less chance of being lost or misread.

Here's a screencast that walks you through the process. It also shows how the URL shortener goo.gl creates a smaller URL to easily use to sign in to multiple computers, and creates a QR code so families can even use their smart phones to respond.

This week's EduWin

Todd Sinclair went to the Tech I training at the Krause Center for Innovation this summer. In addition, Todd was very excited to attend the Union School District Technology Innovation Summit. Starting the year off with a Chromebook cart, Todd decided to jump right in. One of the first projects he introduced to his students was one Lisa Highfill demonstrated in her opening Keynote address. Students fill in a Google Form, reporting on their summer vacation. This information is used to populate a Google Map Engine Lite. From there, students can add information to the pins.

Here's Todd's students' map:

View Room 19 Summer Vacation in a larger map

Now that you know how to make a Google Form, you may want to try this in your class. Here is a How-to YouTube video made by Joe Wood, one of the presenters at the USD Tech Innovation Summit. Start the video about 3 min 40 sec. to see how to do it.