Back to School w/ Student Interest Surveys

This is Lyndsey here from Lit with Lyns, and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that it's back to school time again!  As a matter of fact, in the Metro  Atlanta area, we started back this week, and I must admit, this is the way I was feeling at first.  It's always hard to leave my kids after having the summer together, but we all have to do it!

As I began to plan for the upcoming school year, I started to think about the most efficient way to get to know my students, while also being able to update their likes/dislikes, changes that they may experience, etc. throughout the year.  I didn't want to glance through the mound of papers and hope to remember a small fraction of information about a student.  With that in mind, I created a Digital Back to School Student Interest Survey on Google Forms.  When students answer the questions on Google Forms, it saves automatically.  Then their answers are also automatically put into a spreadsheet-- also saved on your Google Drive (see the steps below for exactly how to do this).  How awesome is that?!? 

Throughout the year, I can refer back to all of the info I have stored, and I can add to it if necessary.  This year I also plan to have my students complete the same survey during the middle of the year.  This will allow me to see if there have been any changes.  Another plus is that you can modify the form if you need to make changes to questions or if you need to add new ones.

I also have a FREE back to school survey that you can check out here! 
How do you use the beginning of the year surveys?  Tell me all about it in the comments.