Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Teletherapy: Using Google Forms to Track Parent Contacts

I have no problem with the idea of keeping handwritten documentation. In fact, sometimes I think it is faster than using the computer. I suppose it depends on the system or the way you do it. Some telepractice platforms have powerful data collection capability built in or require data and information to be tracked with their own online system. The company I contract with uses Go To Meeting. It is the only platform I have ever used. All of my students that I currently work with, attend virtual academies and I provide one-on-one services. As part of my daily documentation for each student, I needed to find a fast and efficient way to track my contacts with parents and maintain an editable running record of those contacts organized on one page that could be uploaded to the school's secure database in the form of a PDF. I'm okay with Excel but have found Google Sheets and Forms easier. I decided to use a simple Google Form with drop downs that would populate a spread sheet for me and could be downloaded as a PDF. Below is a sample form and what the spreadsheet looks like with bogus information. 


The following is screenshot of what the information looks like in a spreadsheet format. If needed, the spreadsheet itself can be edited at any time. A nice feature of  Google Forms is that you can also see data presented in charts and graphs with a click.
In order for me to track all of my parent contacts, I will need a Google Form for each student. All of the forms would be stored in one folder in Google Drive. I also need a folder for the live spreadsheets. In actual use, since I have a second monitor, I can open Drive and select the students I have on my schedule for the day so they would appear as tabs. Once organized, the process of documenting using the forms will require a few more minutes of morning preparation time, plus I think I will initially keep paper forms in case I encounter glitches or it turns out to be a pain. What would really be cool is if I had an iPad or tablet and each form could be a "button" on a screen. That would make it easy peasy. Now I want an iPad. 

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