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Blog 3: Spreadsheets
Software: Spreadsheets
Description
Spreadsheets are programs that allow you to use rows and columns to manage, predict, and present information. With a spreadsheet program, you are able to use mathematical formulas to calculate information and display charts to get a graphical representation of the data.
Key Findings
Margaret Niess? article states that ?Technology is essential in teaching and learning mathematics; it influences the mathematics that is taught and enhances student learning.? I completely agree with this statement. One, I teach technology and two I am a little bias on the positive side towards math. Math is an essential component that our students will need throughout their entire lives. It goes back to the ?three R?s? that were focused on in school decades ago: Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic. Theses are the core foundations that out students need.
However, I?m sure it can get pretty mundane just using paper and pencil to get things done. Students get very excited when using calculators to solve their problems, just imagine the excitement level when students are able to use spreadsheets. When using the software, the students are using technology to develop their problem solving, and decision-making skills.
Reflection
I love spreadsheets with a passion. In my mind it is the greatest application software ever created. There are so many things that you can do and it?s so easy to set your workbooks up. I have rejuvenated excitement when I teach the unit on spreadsheets and my students perform higher on this unit than any other.
Margaret stresses the importance of scaffolding the use of spreadsheets in math classes and I find that to be important with anything that you do, especially spreadsheets. In math, the students are working on the operations they need to know. Whereas, when I work on spreadsheets in my class I am expecting the students to have the math knowledge already. This is never the case. To get the students on the same level, we do math exercises to get the acclimated or reacclimated to using and writing formulas. I also spend time working on percents and teaching students how to write numbers. When a student sees ?5%? they have a very hard time converting from percents to decimals.
We currently spend about 3 weeks working on spreadsheets and during that time, we complete various assignments I hope the students will use in the future. We always work on budgeting and the students are not only given a chance to track their spending, but they can look at the percentages. How much are they spending on food? Clothing? Entertainment?
I have many visual learners so the charts help them visualize the information better. When you think about it, when you learn how to do percentages in elementary you begin by working with pictures- pies, and pizzas. My visual students have an ?Aaha!? moment when they create the graphs of the information they inputted.
By incorporating spreadsheets and other software programs into the curriculum, students are gaining access and knowledge to not only the material being presented in the curriculum, but reinforcing it with technology.
Posted at 01:47PM Nov 09, 2006 by MCCRAY, CATRICE in General | Comments[0]