Spreadsheets

AAAAHHHHHHH! I'm not sure I understand Spreadsheets, and I certainly can't say that I have mastered any aspect of it. That said, I liked the way Spreadsheets was used to record data and convert it into graphs in both of the middle school lesson plans. Obviously this is a very useful skill, and much more efficient (and accurate) then measuring out the spaces when creating one's own graph--not to mention the fact that it is much easier to incorporate into a slide presentation.

I especially liked the example link of the survey of voters asking what issues were most important to them and who they voted for. If I teach Social Studies, I could definitely see myself assigning students a similar project letting them see graphically how the perceived importance of various issues shape voters' decisions (rather than just the label of Republican or Democrat).

I had always wondered why Spreadsheets existed, because I thought it was merely filling in tables, and you can do that with Word . I had no idea such programs do computations for you, or that the data collected could so easily be displayed in a more visual and understandable form. I especially like that shared spreadsheets can be edited or only viewed.