Spreadsheets and the Classroom

While they can be slightly frusterating to use at times, spreadsheets can offer many uses in the classroom. For the teacher they are an invaluable tool for keeping track of marks and student progress. Spreadsheets could also be used as a tool to keep track of their own marks. It could be used in math for doing assignments on averages, means, modes etc. It could be used in a science class for students to create charts about animal populations in certain areas. Or keeping track of the weather throughout the year. As an English major, I struggled with how to use spreadsheets in an Language arts class. But during the tutorials I came accross a brillian idea of using spreadsheets to create timelines. A lesson that I could do in my coming practicum to get to know the kids, would be have them create a their very own timeline about themselves. It would be autobiographical and they could include events they thought were important about their lives. Once each child has completed their timeline, we will print them out and they could bring pictures of themselves to glue to the timelines and we could post them all over the classroom. That way each child can display their work of art proudly, but also have the opportunity to learn about their peers.