Collecting Student Work with Google Forms

Google applications have a multitude of uses, both for students and teachers.  Students can have one "central  hub" for all of their documents--i.e. word documents, all the different kinds of Google docs, PDF files, etc.--to which they can store and share via unique url.  And, of course, teachers can also utilize this for storage of all their lesson plans and other important documents.

One thing I love about Google docs is the ability to create a "form".  With a Google forms, you can create a form document which can contain several different type of responses, such as: multiple choice, drop down, text boxes, etc.  What is great about this, for teachers, is that this gives the capability for teachers to collect a student's work with minimal effort.  Here's a example of a form I created that allows students to submit their URL for the required document: 
With this, students don't have to register to be able to access the document (other than maybe signing up for a Google account, just so they can create documents in Google) and you can easily embed the form into your website (such as Google Sites if you have one for your class). And once students make their submission, you get all the results in a spreadsheet in your Google account, including the time stamp.


What is also nice about this is that it doesn't necessarily have to be a Google document that your students would have to submit, it could be anything that students can provide the unique URL to their work, a Evernote note for example.

Note: One thing to keep in mind is that students must be sure that if the are using Google Docs to set the document to share with "anyone with the link" to share with "everyone".

I think this is a pretty easy way for teachers to collect work from their students. If students do use Google or Evernote or any other "cloud service", it would eliminate documents from being not accessible because they are on the student's "computer at home".

Thoughts?