Submitting Digital Assignments with Google Forms & Screenshots

Google recently updated its Forms to allow embedding of images and videos opens the door for great possibilities with surveys/quizzes/etc. It's especially helpful in one area: using Google Forms to submit student work. (Credit to +Greg Kulowiec for opening my eyes to this!)

My 7th graders completed timelines on major events of the Civil War using the program Timeglider. In order to share them with me, they would need to change the sharing settings and find an obscure link to their timeline. Knowing the confusion caused by this from past experience, I created a simple form where they would only enter two pieces of information:

1. Their name
2. The link to their timeline

In order to get this information, I now used screenshots to show them exactly how to share it correctly. Since the screenshots can be embedded in the survey, it simplifies the process for the students.

The result? Zero questions. Nearly 100% of links correctly submitted within 4 minutes of the start of class. (Realized I was missing one step that through off a few students... always learning!)

To create the images, I simply used my Mac's built-in screenshot feature (command + shift + 3), then cropped and annotated the image using Mac's built-in pdf viewer, Preview.

Since Google Drive also allows for embedding of videos, this would be an easy to way to incorporate screencast video tutorials for the same reason. I use these often to show students how to use the various online tools we utilize in class.