Spreadsheets

I have never worked with the Spreadsheets of Google Docs. After reviewing the Atomic Learning for Spreadsheets, I learned how to title a new document, open a new tab and upload a spreadsheet. Google Docs allows you to upload Excel Spreadsheets to Google Docs by converting to Google Docs and then uploading. I also looked a keyboard shortcuts. By clicking Help and going to Keyboard shortcuts, I am able to view all the shortcuts, if using a Mac, I substitute the command key for the control key. I like the shortcut options. I also looked at the Chat feature. in the upper right hand corner is an area to type a message and send to other viewer. This is helpful when collaborating with other people in the same text. I also looked at email notifications and this is an email alert that goes out to shared viewers..by going to Tools and setting specific regulation rules we can set specific notification requirements. I like the daily digest email and the right away email notification that is available.

I looked at the Consumer Product Testing Experiment for elementary. The students were expected to understand why consumer product information is important and the type of tests and methods for recording data from those test. The students used Google Forms, which is a survey development interface with built-in reporting. As a side note, to my surprise, this means the day of SeaMonkey are numbered, apparently people are not interested in paying monthly fees to store survey response data. I absolutely think I could use a lesson plan like this one someday. I think a survey on time watching TV or time on video games would be a great survey to conduct. I would pick the age group of my students because I would be interested to know how much time they are spending watching TV and playing video games outside of class.

The second lesson plan I looked at was Introduction to Scientific Method - Marble Stacking using Google Spreadsheets. In this lesson students are introduced to the scientific method through a hand-on activity using Google Spreadsheet to record data and report findings. By titling the columns headers with hypothesis, method, observations, and conclusions the teacher is able to assess understanding through the spreadsheet.

I think spreadsheets are wonderful tools for math and science. In fact, in my last class, I was able to create bar graphs in two math lessons using excel. Spreadsheets are wonderful tools in teaching and assessing.