My teaching life changed after learning this super simple way to collect digital work from students. Organized and all in one place, so easy to access and grade!
My students used to send me an email with links to their digital work, but that meant me constantly searching though my inbox to find missing assignments!
But no longer! Google Forms to the rescue again!
Submitting to a Google Form generates an organized list of web links you can easily access. No more missing student email submissions or searching for shared documents!
Start the Google Form like any other – with a title and a place for students to add their name.
TIP! Have one place for First Name and one for Last Name – this will let you organize students alphabetically later on when you are grading!
To make a Google Form to collect digital work from their own Google Drive or their computer, select ‘upload file’ as the question type.
This will allow students to select work from their Google Drive – a Doc, Slides, Draw, Sheets – etc or a file from their computer.
NOTE – this method makes a copy of the Google document that you will access. If students edit on their end, it will not change the document you have. This can work great if you suspect that students ‘turn in’ their work, but continue to edit it after the due date!
If you make grading notes on the document, you will have to then share your copy of their work with your student for them to see your notes / their grade.
***Teaching Tip!*** Always check to be sure your Google Form is working properly BEFORE giving it to your kids. Do this by using the “view” button at the top. Go though the whole thing just like you were a student. I have found SO many mistakes this way and saved myself a lot of trouble!
If your students are turning in something they made online, like a ThingLink, Sutori, Padlet, etc, you can make a Google Form and select ‘short paragraph’ as the question type. Your students simply paste the web link into the form and submit!
Related: Three simple digital classroom tools you can learn to use in five minutes!
This also works for any Google App file that your students are still 
working on. Pasting the ‘share’ link into the Google Form will give you access but allow them to continue to edit and update their work .
Your students will need to be sure that the share settings on their file are set to ‘anyone with link can view’ or even better, ‘anyone with link can edit’. This will allow you to add grading notes to their work, which they can then access and see right away.
When turning something in this way, I often include a ‘question’ on the Google Form that asks “Did you change the share settings so that anyone with link can edit?” and make them click “yes” as the only answer choice – because otherwise they often forget!
The Magic of using Google Forms to Collect Digital Work
Just like any Google Form, you can see student responses by clicking the ‘Responses’ tab. From there, click the little green icon near the top that will make a Google Sheets of student responses.
This is where the magic is! Now you have a spreadsheet with names of each student, right beside a link to their digital work! To organize students alphabetically, select the column with their name (first or last, whichever you want), right click and select “Sort A-Z”. Beautiful!
Below is a screenshot of an infographic my students completed and turned in using a Google Form. Each entry is even time stamped so I know if something is submitted late!
I like to put the grade to this same spreadsheet by adding a column beside their name. Grade goes in as I go through each student’s work – then I can transfer them to the grade book quickly all at one time!
Related: Use Google Forms to make Digital Lessons! Free Lesson Template included in the post!
CLICK to GO to the list of Seven New Ways to use Google Forms in the Classroom!
Want to know more about the three easiest digital tools for your classroom? You can learn them all in less than fifteen minutes!
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Thanks for the great tips and how-to’s.