I attended the Region 4 Digital Learning Conference on Wednesday and brought back some fresh ideas and some ways to work more efficiently. In Amy Mayer’s session we looked at individualizing staff development using Google Forms, Docs, and Autocrat. I loved the idea of interviewing a teacher and gaining some insight to his/her strengths and weaknesses, then creating a shared document with that teacher’s individualized goals for learning in the coming year. You could even use this format to work on individualized student goals.
Amy also uses Autocrat, which is an add-on to Google Sheets. Autocrat creates a mail-merge and it can be automated. You can have people complete a Google Form, with the information from the form automatically populating a Sheet, then Autocrat takes the information from the sheet automatically, and adds it to a document. It’s a great way to create Certificates of Completion. Amy’s Autocrat instructional video is HERE.
In a session by James Wigfall there were some great ideas for using Google Forms in the classroom. One of the ways that he individualizes for students is to create a drop-down menu in his Google Form with each student’s name on it. When a student chooses his name, he is linked to a lesson or assignment tailored to his needs or level. James creates 3 different versions of the lesson and students are linked to the version that fits them best. You can also go a step further and differentiate the next question on a form based on the answer that a student chooses. Here’s a VIDEO explaining how. 
#lufkinlearns 