It is the holiday season and I want to share a fun way to engage your students with the spirit of sharing!
Many customs and cultures exchange gifts at the holiday times. This idea was shared with me from my Dutch friends who celebrate Sinterklaas. They exchange gifts and poems.
That gave me the idea that I could use Google forms to ask students to give their names and a few details about themselves. Then when the teacher decides, end the submissions and pair all of the students secretly!
It even sends emails to their gmail accounts. Check out the video above for a demonstration on how to setup the project with your class. Below, I am going to talk a little bit about the code
The makeList() function is the main entry point.
function makeList() {
//1. Close the responses to the form
var formUrl = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getFormUrl();
FormApp.openByUrl(formUrl)
.setAcceptingResponses(false)
.setCustomClosedFormMessage('Sorry but the pairs have been made and entry is closed!');
//2. Pair the people together
var pairs = getPairs();
//3. Create an answer sheet
writeSheet(pairs);
//4. Send emails to everyone!
sendEmails(pairs);
//Done, signal the sheet
Browser.msgBox('Done creating the pairs and emailing the members');
}Then, I am using the array method .slice() to force a copy of the array of students and an array shuffle function that I found on StackOverflow to shuffle the copy.
function shuffle(array) {
var currentIndex = array.length,
temporaryValue,
randomIndex;
// While there remain elements to shuffle...
while (0 !== currentIndex) {
// Pick a remaining element...
randomIndex = Math.floor(Math.random() * currentIndex);
currentIndex -= 1;
// And swap it with the current element.
temporaryValue = array[currentIndex];
array[currentIndex] = array[randomIndex];
array[randomIndex] = temporaryValue;
}
return array;
}I check to make sure that the two arrays are not equal, and if they aren’t, I match up the students. This way, every student has a unique pair.
function isEqual(vals, copy) {
for (var i = 0; i < vals.length; i++) {
if (vals[i][1] === copy[i][1]) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}