Tea Time Teaching: Lesson 2

Spreadsheets and Databases

Spreadsheets and databases are not just for businesses anymore. Once again technology has slipped into the everyday life of education. Educators use spreadsheets for so many things. Just check out this article from Education.com: http://www.education.com/reference/article/impact-spreadsheets-education/. Spreadsheets are being used for administrative purposes as well as educational lessons, because they are effective and efficient.

Administratively, teachers use them for a variety of purposes. I personally use Excel as a place to write up and organize my lesson plans. I also develop unit overviews, seating charts, inventories, and organizational charts. I even use excel to develop my own pacing guides. Data is easily collected and analyzed through the use of Excel. Students are constantly being tested - formally and informally - so that teachers can make educated decisions about how to best move forward to meet student needs. Creating graphs, using functions, and making charts are central to this process. I have even found where other teachers have created posters using Excel. I live, breathe, and promote Excel for educator use everyday, but now I have a new reason to love Excel.

For me, the idea of student's using Excel was reserved for their computer special. Surely elementary students would not be able to use Excel as an integrated portion of various subjects. Why I was so naive, I will never know. Dr. Alice Christie has created a website with several elementary level uses of spreadsheets in the classroom. Most are related to mathematics, but other subjects are included as well. Take for instance the activity of charting the climate of two U.S. cities. This is often done during a science unit on chart paper. However, students can use Excel to chart the information, and then quickly create graphs to make comparisons and inferences. If you visit http://library.thinkquest.org/J0110054/Classroom_Activities.html, activities are even broken down by subject. Under "Grammar", this teacher had the idea of students typing in their vocabulary words in one column and their definitions in a separate column. Students then copied and pasted these columns onto a blank worksheet. The list of vocabulary words were sorted alphabetically, giving students a way to study through matching terms with definitions. Students were able to self-check through the using the original worksheet.

Although I have not previously used Excel in the classroom with my students, I see it becoming integrated into many of my units. With so many ideas at my fingertips, it would be horrifying to deny my students the opportunity to grow more advanced in their use of technology and to be actively engaged. Technology has become center to our students' lives, even if we may find ourselves reluctant to admit it. It is time for me to learn to integrate Excel into my classroom, isn't it about time for you to do the same?

Examples of how I have used Excel: