I did a bit of searching yesterday for a way to easily create groups in Google Contacts.

• Problem: How can  a teacher easily create Groups in their Contacts for their classes so that they can share and collaborate with their students?
  Solution: I found a perfect solution by watching a YouTube movie by James Castle at Clarke Central High School. I tested it out and, wow! It’s really slick. These are the steps that you will see by watching the movie:
  • Create a Google Form. Create two questions. One for first name, and another for last name. Click the box at the top of the Google Form which reads, “Automatically collect respondent’s district username.” (The username is actually the student email address.) Ask your students to complete the form. You can also add a column for “Period” if you are using the same form for many classes.
  • Go to the spreadsheet (responses). Create a new sheet. Label three columns.
    • First Name
    • Last Name
    • Email
  • Copy and paste the information from the spreadsheet into your new sheet.
  • Go to File, Download as, Comma Separated Values (csv, current sheet) and the file will be put in your download folder on your computer.
  • Go to Mail, Contacts, and click on Import Contacts.
  • Choose the file from your downloads folder and “Open and Import.”
  • You will now see under Contacts, “Imported 00/00/00. (the date) 00 (number of people in the group)”. Choose “Find and merge duplicates” at the top of the page. Rename the group to something meaningful such as “Science Period 2”, etc.

I’m sure there are other ways to achieve the same outcome such as using filters in Infinite Campus or using third party applications, but this one worked for me.