Assignment #7: Spreadsheets

The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education website was full of interesting collaborative research projects. They seemed very interesting and easy to implement. They make you a little nervous with the requirements links, but the organizers just want to make sure you are committed to finishing the project.

The projects themselves can be applied to multiple grade levels. There are both secondary and elementary projects. In reading about them, they seem to be easy to maintain once the initial footwork has been done. A teacher would need to make the data collection a regular part of the classroom routine. This opens the door for a wide variety of application opportunities. A variety of reading, expressive, and math skills could be modeled, practiced or perfected. Collecting data; recording and interpreting results; writing conclusions; publishing and posting results using presentation software and web tools; comparing and contrasting data from around the world are only the beginning of the many skills that could be incorporated into the class’ participation.

The Franklin Institute had some good sites linked to show how to incorporate spreadsheets into your classroom. Some links did not work, but many did. They can be a little hard to read, but the step by step instructions given seem easy to follow. The timeline applications were a good introductory activity for spreadsheet use.

The site also had some good instructions for making graphs and charts. Some instructions had visuals to go with the written directions. Those were easier to use for me. If it’s easier for me, then I’ll better be able to explain it to my students. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Navigation from link to link was easy enough, but some pages were not printer friendly. Printing some directions would take a lot of ink.

Finally, I reviewed the site linked to Interactive Spreadsheets. I liked this site because it was simple and user friendly. It showed how to create and use interactive spreadsheets. I had no idea they could be used this way. I had never seen them applied this way. Students could respond to math, reading and language questions in the spreadsheet and it will tell them if their response was correct. A teacher could create a variety of activities on multiple levels. It’s true that it would take some work to establish, but once a number of templates were created, they could be tweaked as needed. The website also has several examples whose links still work, so that helps in not “reinventing the wheel”.

I found this review very educational. I discovered whole new uses for spreadsheets. I liked the interactive activities and the visual stimuli they could generate.