Using Google Forms to keep a stupidly easy teaching journal
Last year a colleague of mine talked about how valuable it is for him to keep a teacher's journal. After class he would jot down some brief notes about what worked, what didn't work, and ideas for the future. It's such an obviously good idea, but I know myself well enough that getting in the habit of doing this consistently would be challenging.
I was trying to think of ways to overcome barriers I might face in trying to keep up with a teaching log. I thought about using a private blog, a separate twitter account, or just a google doc, but having to log into a website to submit seemed like it would be just enough of an annoyance to prevent me from doing it. Remembering to have a specific notebook (and a pen) near me when I was ready to write seemed unlikely. I found a solution that I might actually use, once I get in the habit. In google docs, I created what they call a form--basically a website that has questions and fields. This form has only one question: "What did you do / learn today?" with a field to type some text. As soon as I hit the submit button, that text is entered (with a timestamp) into a private google docs spreadsheet, which I can access when I'm ready to reflect. The beauty of this is that accessing the form page to submit requires no sign-in ... only knowledge of its URL, which I have bookmarked on each computer I use. It's the spreadsheet with all of the entries that's secured with a password. Watch this video to see how to make your own teaching journal using google forms.
