Well this is spreadsheet week in the Tech Int. program and I have mixed reviews. I personally really enjoy working with spreadsheets, in fact I developed a spreadsheet this summer that I use with some guys I golf with. It was a lot of fun to keep track of our summer long competition. We created a relatively simple game that we could play involving fairways, greens and putts, along with some penalties. We used the spreadsheet to then calculate a score based on possible points. The spreadsheet allowed us to have a season long competition and have fun with our competitiveness. I've used spreadsheets occasionally in the past, but only for personal reasons like this or a job I had growing up.
I have never found much success using them in class. My class this year used a spreadsheet to compare statistical data from the countries of Asia in the CIA World Factbook, and group countries by region and some of the kids really enjoyed seeing the differences between countries. They really enjoyed looking at countries that have 'amazing' statistics like Afghanistan's 44 life expectancy, Turkmenistan's 40% unemployment and Singapore's 2.3 Infant Mortality Rate! Students also used the spreadsheet to compare country data with U.S. The problem I ran into with my spreadsheet in class was that for every person who was really excited about the comparisons I had two or three who really struggled with finding meaning or dissecting the numbers.
What this spreadsheet didn't do was to have any formulas in it. I suppose it could have calculated regional averages, continent averages or identified highs and lows. This will maybe be something I'll do when we work with European countries next quarter. Any other ideas for the spreadsheet would be greatly appreciated.
