Blog Entry - Week Two

It’s obvious that technology is going to stick around for a while. Teenagers and children have far greater access to personal technology in contemporary times than any previous generation. The question is simple: how should we utilize technology in a way beneficial to its recipients?

Two rather basic computer programs which have numerous uses in the classroom are known as spreadsheet and excel (excel is a brand name spreadsheet software). It is simple enough so that both children and adults can learn how to use its main features in less than a day. Using our online readings, as well as an independent website, http://www.belmar.k12.nj.us/public/everyday_spreadsheets/ (hereafter referred to as Everyday Spreadsheets), I will discuss several general advantages of using spreadsheet as well as a few specific ways that teachers and students can use it.

Given that both programs can be transported in digital form, they both have an advantage of being shared to many different devices, e.g. a smart phone or laptop. This transfer of data can be expedited via a USB cable, a flash drive, or e-mail; it happens almost instantaneously, to boot. Also concerning speed, when these programs work from a computer processor nearly any calculation is resolved immediately. The instructor can use these programs to present several different charts, graphs or tables concurrently. This last advantage provides a boon to students due to the teacher’s ability to stimulate both audio and visual sensors, thereby triggering better response and, presumably, understanding.

The aforementioned benefits are generalized effects of spreadsheet and excel. Let us move on to more specific items for teachers as well as students. Personal and assignment schedules can be created with ease. What’s more, they can be edited and updated with minimum effort and saved onto other devices. Grade books can be designed to not only record scores but also convert numeric grades into letter grades with certain formulae, available from Everyday Spreadsheets. Rubrics and grade evaluation pages can be designed in a way similar to schedules, but obviously with different results. The authors from Everyday Spreadsheets also list lesson plans, time logs, charts and checklists as being available in various forms from spreadsheet and excel. Another example of using a spreadsheet, albeit a rather strange one, is by formatting the layout of the program in order to create a game. The example used in Everyday Spreadsheets is that of the well known game Battleship, which includes a sample image of what the “board” and “game pieces” look like once in play.

Personally, excel has been helpful to me while recording inventory while working at various retail businesses. Additionally, spreadsheet documents have been a great use to me for use as financial records, as well as keeping a catalog for my personal library. Although I am not a teacher, the above list provides a good starting point for the planning process.