If you are anything like me when you hear the word spreadsheet, you groan in dread of dealing with it. Through the course of this last session I have found some really neat ways to use spreadsheets that I never would have thought of. Your class is taking a poll? Spreadsheets can do it. You want your students to present their data in a more organized fashion? Ditto. And using these programs are not as difficult as you would imagine. With the help of a few simple walkthroughs and thirty minutes of my time I was able to figure out basic math formulas in a spreadsheet, as well as more complicated features such as IF. The MAX and MIN functions were also new to me, as my past experience with spreadsheets is limited to inventory for retail companies.
I have already seen several good examples of ways to use a spreadsheet that I haven't considered such as using it to calculate the cost of a field trip, or the uses I mentioned earlier like class data collections. Honestly, I never even considered using spreadsheets for my students. I pictured myself using them regularly to keep track of grades, but never in the contexts I have seen now. The things that can be done with a spreadsheet are truly inspiring, and I look forward to using this asset in my own classroom in the future. Below is my example.
