Before I get into using spreadsheets I want to say I am really excited about using NetTrekker!!! I have never used it before... actually I have never even heard of it until this week! I have been playing around with it tonight and am really excited about it! I hope it is something we can incorporate into our school next year. The new feature for research ( igotta) that it offers looks amazing, but again it comes at a cost.... like most things.
Ok, on to spreadsheets. I have used Excel before for numerous things, but to be honest haven't used it much recently besides for lists. Now that our grade book is all online I haven't had much need for it. I did truly enjoy playing around with writing formulas. I thought Google Spreadsheets was easy to use and most of the features were the same as Excel. I do think Excel is easier to use, but again I am sure that is just because I have used it for years. Google Spreadsheets is still lacking some features that Excel contains, but maybe eventually it will get there.
As far as how I can use it in my classroom. My students and I use our Senteos ofter and look at pie charts that their assessments produce. It would be fun to have the kids do an assessment and learn how to create their own charts. I can see numerous ways to use spreadsheets in Math and I think I could find ways to use it in social studies, but I am struggling with ways to incorporate it into reading... Any ideas????
Kristy,
ReplyDeleteNice post.
Spreadsheets are addicting. Once you get to playing with the formulas, you find that you want to do more and more. It's especially interesting to students when they can connect calculations to 3 or more cells. It seems magical to them, and then they try to work the logic.
I do hope you continue to find Nettrekker valuable,.