Creating a Google Form that Automatically Eliminates a Selection once it has been Selected

Ok, the title is not all that spicy, but the learning is legit! I am so excited about this Google Form Hack, I have used it a couple of cool ways and I think you will too. Quick story:

When I was at the Google Teacher Academy in Chicago this summer I watched a demo by a cat named +Jay Atwood , super nice guy and knows his way around automation. My ears perked up because as a high school principal and a life long slacker, I am always looking for ways to get more done with less effort. Jay mentioned that +Andrew Stillman, the author of like every super-cool Google Script imaginable, had created a particularly useable script named FormRanger. The script will take a list of items that you put in a spreadsheet and make these items the posible selections on a Google Form.

So, if you are new to all this lingo, imagine making an online survey (WebForm), and the answers to each question can change based on how other people answer the questions!?!

For example, you might want to put out a form to your staff asking everyone to choose a day & time to meet with you. Once one person selects a time, FormRanger will update the form and eliminate that selection: Thus no two people will get the same time-slot! 

You could use this for all kinds of things! My wife uses it for a parent volunteer form, you could use it to create a wish list for parent donations and never get the same item twice, or kids could sign up to do book reports or presentations in class! I can imagine it being used for a potluck or any number of things.

So, I set out to try to build a form using FormRanger, super easy, but, no lie, I needed some help with the formulas on the spreadsheet to make it all work. Being the luckiest man alive (married to an amazing wife, I have a super cool job, etc.) I happen to work with +Geoff Lilley , the smartest database-daredevil and excel-super-wizard I have ever met. Thanks to him, I was able to put together this super useful Google Hack. 

Take a look, give it a try, and come back and let me know how you were able to put it into action.

Link to Step By Step Directions

Learning to Code

It is never too late to learn. I tell my student this, my children, anyone who will listen. Today: I listened. A couple educators I know through this and that were starting an online book club of sorts - they all decided to enroll in a course at www.codeacademy.com and then meet back online to share what they'd learned.

Ok, first of all, this is some insane 21st Century evolution of my grandmother's knitting circle. My Grandma used to get together with her friends once a week and "Knit." I don't know that she ever finished as much as a sock in all the years she shoo'd us out of the house so, "the ladies could have some privacy." I was only 9, I had no idea why they needed privacy to knit, especially in the one room in the house with a TV, needless to say, I played outside. These 21st Century trail blazing educators aren't sitting around a room full of rocking chairs, they are logging in from all laptops all around the world, sharing a laugh over what they are learning in the cloud.

These educator friends of mine, not a one of them knows a thing about writing "Code." For those of you, like me, that didn't even know what Code meant, it refers to Computer Code: the language that allows our computers to make all the magic. So, I figure that if these characters are all going to jump in and become programmers, I think to myself, "Hey, I'm game to learn something new," so I go to the CodeAcademy, which is FREE, so my wife will allow it, and I enroll.

Within minutes, I am writing code. I click here, and type in some gibberish  and out pops some cool dialog box that says, "Look Here." It reminded me of my old Commodore 64, plugged into my dad's TV in 1981. As I start to get down the rabbit hole of this coding thing, I start to get hooked. I can see the gibberish starting to make sense, I think I can finally see how those cats in the Matrix can see the girl in the red dress. Coding is just another language.

It was like a firecracker popped right there in my head. Boom! I get this!

Now, I only took one lesson, and I certainly didn't learn how to do much more than make my computer say hello, but I think I will stick around and see if this online knitting circle produces a sock. If you have an hour: go to the CodeAcademy: I am hoping to knit an entire sweater.

I've Got a Golden Ticket

It never happens to me: I am not the one who peels back the wrapper to find the golden ticket; I'm not the one who brings home the big cash prize from the weekend Vegas trip or the, “You just won two free tickets to the Super Bowl,” sweepstakes winner. It just isn't me. It's ok, don't get me wrong, I am super lucky in life: I have a great gig, an awesome family, and I have been around the globe like the paperboy around the block. I've got luck, mostly dumb luck, the kind that gives you what you need, just not the big prize on the billboard winner of life changing dreams. Heck, I'm not complaining, its just a look at how the chips fall. Until today.

Today, my luck has just changed. I just signed my pre-tour nondisclosure agreement from Willy Wonka. Yup, I am Augustus Gloop, giddy with my good fortune and getting ready for the gluttony that only a tour of the Wonka factory can provide!

A couple months back all the buzz on the Twittersphere was that it was time for all the Google minded tech educators to produce their Google Teacher Academy applications, send it in and wait to hear back from Wonka. Only 50 Google-Geeks from around the globe are picked to peek behind the curtain of the Google headquarters to receive training straight from the Oompa Loompas themselves.

Just like the kids that tore through the candy stores looking for that one golden ticket, the tech teachers couldn't sleep waiting to see if a goldenrod email arrived in their inbox, making their dreams come true. The time finally came, and just like Charlie, receiving his annual pittance of a single birthday Wonka Bar, it  was the day when the google teacher candidates were to check their inbox for that magic moment. Charlie peeled back the wrapper and found only chocolate while I opened my email to find only disappointment, my inbox was empty. Charlie lied to himself saying he never really thought there would be a ticket in his one bar per year, and I told myself the same. Everyone was all a buzz on Twitter announcing that the results were in and the emails had gone out.   

Twitter was broadcasting the news: There was a girl who loved to chew gum that got accepted and a kid who loved to watch TV...the results were in and I was out.

Then, sitting there convincing myself that it wasn't meant to be, I remembered someone mentioning something about a spam filter. It was like the sparkling coin in the gutter, the glimmer of hope, the eleventh hour second chance: and there it was!

Congratulations, you have been selected to attend the Google Teacher Academy in Chicago.

It is now just a few days from the tour of the factory, I have just signed my non-disclosure form: this is to protect Google in case I am contacted by Mr Slugworth promising me fortunes if I can only leave the offices with an Evaluating Gob Stopper App scripted by the Oompas in a beta lab.

I gladly signed the form, and next week, I will fly to Chicago, and although I would love to inherit the Google empire due to my pure heart and "aw shucks" demeanor, I figure I am more likely to fall into the chocolate river of Google greatness while lapping up all I can handle on the shore of Google's data stream. Since receiving my golden ticket I have done nothing but consume Google three meals a day. I now know how Agustus felt as he stood on the front steps staring at the chocolate factory.