Spreadsheets

=Spreadsheets = media type="custom" key="8962774" align="right" Emily Kelley

Description and Uses of Technology
In the infancy of home computer ownership, spreadsheets were the catalyst that made home computer usage more prominent than it had been in the past. Today, spreadsheet use is popular in the business world as well as in schools. A spreadsheet can be defined "as a page of rows and columns that displays words, numbers, and formula entries," (Odera, 2010, p. 332). Furthermore, "a spreadsheet is used for presenting and manipulating data," (Healy & Sutherland, 1990, p. 847). In a classroom setting, spreadsheets are especially useful for teaching students how to develop and replicate rules, creating graphic representations (i.e. histograms, bar graphs, scatter plots, pie charts), allowing for quick calculation and experimenting with data. While spreadsheets are sommonly thought of as an inquiry tool in mathematics and science classrooms, spreadsheets can be used anytime that visual aids and organization of information into rows or columns would be beneficial for students.

Important Findings on Student Outcomes
====Spreadsheets are a flexible tool, offering teachers in all content areas and grade levels the opportunity to organize data, information, and thinking into an interactive resource. The use of spreadsheets in the mathematics classroom allows students to easily explore implications of mathematical rules as well as facilitates student creation of rules and algorithms. Even young and novice students can easily access adn use spreadsheets because it is not necessary to learn a programming language to use this tool. Moreover, this aspect "[enables] students to concentrate on thinking about the subject matter at hand rather than on the software," (Baker & Sugden, 2003, p. 4). Because the software is extremely easy to use, "elementary mathematics [classes] can use [it] to develop addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division tables," (Odera, 2010, p. 332).==== ====As students experiment with results in a spreadsheet environment they continually reflect on the change that is occurring within the problem (Healy & Sutherland, 1990). Calculations done in a spreadsheet are much faster than those done by hand or even those done with the use of a traditional calculator. Students can even give each new result and calculation its own cell within the spreadsheet, making all changes visible at one glance. Because of the speed provided by this technology, students can quickly see the impact of changing values which allows for quicker and more focused reflection. This reflection helps students gain a better understanding of the processes at work. Furthermore, pairing students in the problem solving process encourages discussion and exchange of ideas and viewpoints among students as well as additional reflection opportunities.==== ====Spreadsheets also make it easier for teachers to create differentiated instruction as the medium virtually does this on its own. Spreadsheets "facilitate a variety of learning styles which can be characterized by the terms: open-ended, problem-oriented, constructivist, investigative, discovery oriented, active, and student-centered. In addition...they are interactive [and] give immediate feedback to changing data or formulae," (Baker & Sugden, 2003, p. 5). Because column and row spreadsheet representations can be easily converted into a graphic, students who are more visual can easily see any change that is occurring (Odera, 2010).==== ====Spreadsheets are not only useful in mathematics and science classrooms. They can be used in the English or Foreign Language classroom to organize verb conjugation (Litherland, 2011). Furthermore, spreadsheets can be used by individual groups in a history class to analyze cause-effect relationships. Each group can record several causes for a certain effect determined by the instructor and record them in individual spreadsheets. From this, the instructor can merge the spreadsheets and create a class list which can be analyzed by the students (Byrne, 2009).====

Emerging Trends and Open Issues
Currently, there is a push for students to become more quantitatively literate. This means helping students develop the skills necessary so that they can read and analyze common graphs and tables presented by most media outlets today. Out of this has grown groups who are committed to the use of spreadsheets across the curriculum. One advocate states, "Every course that uses tables and graphs is an opportunity for students to become more quantitatively literate," (Vacher, 2010). By collecting and arranging their own data into spreadsheets they can gain more understanding of how they function as well the multitude of uses that they supply. Furthermore, spreadsheets support asking "'what if' questions", giving students more opportunities to be scientists and to perform experiments (Roblyer). ====Roger Nevin (2009) suggests that spreadsheets and classroom technologies can go beyond the classroom and become more collaborative through the use of Google Apps. As one of its Apps, Google contains a spreadsheet creator. Nevin points out that unlike Microsoft Excel, the Google Apps can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection and there are no costly programs to buy. The work created by the students can be kept private so that it is only seen by teachers and other students who have access to the domain. More importantly, Google Apps operates the same from every computer, so students only need to learn one technology environment, thus eliminating confusion. For teachers, Google works as an assistant in tracking student participation. "The teacher is able to see every revision and the number of revisions" to any document and for collaborative documents "Google Apps automatically records who did what work," (Nevin, 2009, p. 37).====

====Regardless of whether a school chooses to use the popular Microsoft Excel program or Google Apps, the question remains, "How do I get started using spreadsheets in my classroom?" For this author, the most convincing use came from Hollylynne Stohl Drier (2001). Drier's article contains several instances of how she has used spreadsheets in the classroom. Her ideas are as simple as helping students see how to convert between fractions, decimals, and percents or showing students how to discover transformations of the graph of a quadratic. For teachers who may be new to the spreadsheet environment, Drier includes helpful visuals as well as many of the formulas she used within her Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. This article is a must-read for math teachers considering the use of spreadsheets within the classroom.====

====Spreadsheets are easy to learn how to use, facilitate quick value changes and data outcomes, and support visual representations. While it may not be practical to use them every day in every type of classroom, they should certainly be considered as a way to make experimentation and data organization easier for teachers and students.====