Shannon’s 10 Steps To Creating a Google DRIVE Spreadsheet for

Real Time Assessment

Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions: ssimpson@jhu.edu

1. Sign In. Sign in to Google and click on “DRIVE.” (Might be under “More” if not it’s own tab.)

2. Create the Doc. Click the red “Create” button on the left and choose, “Spreadsheet.”

3. Enter the Class Exercises. Fill in the Google Spreadsheet as if you were using an Excel sheet. Enter a shortened title for the tasks that you will be asking the students to complete in class. I suggest starting with very simple tasks, like, “Name” or “email” or “Library Homepage Link”, etc. Tasks that they can easily complete while getting the hang of using the GoogleDoc. Here’s an example from an ART 351/Writing About Art class. Include fields at the end that ask about what they learned or what they would like to know more about. You’ll find this immensely helpful for myriad reasons. (NOTE: I have even pasted a link in the last column that allows students to fill out a separate assessment of the class. It’s very meta.)

4. Create an example. Be sure to include one example at the top for students to reference. You may not want to fill in every single field, especially if you ask them to respond to more closed ended sorts of requests. For instance, I ask the students to, “locate and name the places on the Course Gateway where they can find out more information about citations.” (I left that blank on my example row.)

5. Create a Tiny Url. Once the page is complete I suggest creating a “TinyURL” for the students to quickly type in the page at the beginning of class. It’s helpful for yourself and the students if you can manage to create a custom URL, like http://tinyurl.com/351Fugelso  Go to: http://tinyurl.com/ to create one.

6. Change the “Share” settings. At the top of your document, to the right of the title, is a link to the Share settings. The default will have a lock icon and say, “Private to only me.” Click on the link and change to “Anyone with the link.” Once you click that radio button, you will need to change the “ACCESS” option at the bottom of the box. The default only allows the creator to edit the page, but you will need to click the linked drop down menu to say, “Can edit.” If you forget to do this students will not be able to edit the document and you will feel completely lost!

7. Send link. Send the link to the professor to send to the class, or embed in blackboard, or just copy it into your PowerPoint, or write it on the whiteboard.

8. Assign numbers to the students. I found out the hard way that you can’t just have students pick a number and fill in the information. It’s really best that they’re assigned a number at the beginning of class and enter their information in the corresponding row. (You can probably do this verbally as they enter class -but I’m super forgetful, so it’s much easier for me to just pass them out.)

9. Have class!*

10. Save a copy. Make sure to keep this document available to the students, but make a copy for yourself that you set to private. That way the students can still return to see their work, but you will have one from the final copy of class. To do this, just click on, “File” then “Make a Copy.” I’m just adding “Final” to the spreadsheet titles for efficiency.

*Sarah Crest made a great suggestion to highlight, or color-code the row in which you’re currently working so the students don’t get too disoriented/lost with the multi-tasking and toggling required with this sort of instruction.

Let me know if you find some new and better ways to Google Drive for class!