Digital Observation Forms

I, like many of you, have been searching for a better way to contain all those observational notes I collect when conferring with students and share that information with our Title 1 and Special Education teachers for years.  Last year I tried using a "penseive" like the one the CAFE sisters suggest.  I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread in the beginning, but by the end of the school year I realized it wasn't the best tool for me.  I still wasn't able to communicate the way I wanted to with our Title 1 and Special Education teachers and I found the notebook to be a little cumbersome.

I was given an ipad to play with this summer by my school district and decided I would first use it as a teaching tool for me.  I created a conferring observation form for reading, math and writing using Google Forms.  I kept the forms as simple as possible.  Below is a sample of the Reading Observations form that I made.  I am keeping the form and all of my reading lesson plans on a private Google Site that I made for easy access while conferring.

The reason I think this is so wonderful is that each time I submit an observation it puts all the data into a spreadsheet.  I can view the data in several different ways: by student, strategy, books the student has read, etc.  Also, by sharing the form with my colleagues we can all enter our data while working with students and view it!  This will allow all of us to be on the same page with our struggling students...the information will be at the tip of our fingers.