If you’re not familiar with Awesome Table as a whole, check out their site. They have created some pretty powerful tools and add-ons that pair with Google Sheets to make filtering and finding data a breeze. In fact, I use Geocode by Awesome Table (a Sheets add-on) for my Classroom Bridges Find a Classroom page to display the map along with the searchable database. Okay, back to Advanced Summary… Advanced Summary automatically creates an Awesome Table database of Form responses. When you set it up, you create any search filter that you want. I do an integration audit for districts at work, which is essentially a large survey about how teachers are using technology in their instruction. I use this add-on to set up a searchable database, to filter by school, grade level or content area. As a coach, this is invaluable information that I get in a few seconds instead of the time it would take me to set up a pivot table for each question. Advanced Summary by Awesome Table is installed and configured in a Google Form.

On Friday I published a new video guide to using Google Forms for new users. As I noted when I published that video, there are many other features available in Google Forms. Over the last year I've created a bunch of videos on some of the advanced features available in Google Forms. Those videos are all in my Google Forms tutorials playlist that is embedded below. Of course, the playlist will be updated as I create more videos about Google Forms.

Interpreting data from a spreadsheet can feel a bit overwhelming to a lot of students. That's why I'm excited about Google's latest update to Google Sheets. Last week Google added a new feature to make data visualization and interpretation easier than ever. Now when you open the Explore feature in Google Sheets you can simply type in a request for a chart to be displayed based on the data in the sheet. You can also make a simple request for something like the mean or median value of a column.