This week in EDOL 533 we were reviewing something a little less foreign to me. After my first round of college was completed, I did not pursue a teaching degree. Having lived with a teacher (my mom) most of my life, I had no desire to become one! (Boy, how times change.) Instead of pursuing a teaching degree as my Advisor and Senior Seminar instructor suggested, I went into business. That’s right. I was going to delve into the world of bottom-lines and profits. Enter the spreadsheet and database discussion here!
I have worked with various forms of both spreadsheets and databases. I have planned budgets for divisions of companies and spent many a night working Excel programs, trying to get the numbers where I needed them to be. In addition, I have created and edited numerous spreadsheets for client contacts and tickler files. I have snail mailed and emailed thousands of people for advertising. However, during all of that time, it never entered my mind that I would be using those very programs to educate students.
Reading the assignments this week about spreadsheets and databases opened up a whole new line of thought about these types of programs. Known as ‘productivity programs’, these tools can completely change the way educators go about many of their daily routines and lesson plans. These tools not only use the technology that students will need to know for ‘real-world’ applications, but they enable the teacher to link multiple Standards to individual lesson plans. For example, a lesson plan on Social Studies can be combined with technology and math, just be implementing the use of spreadsheets. I see an incredible way to teach the subject matter while engaging students in a form of technology they will need for their future careers. Understanding these types of programs early on can enable them to be job-ready and that is something I had not considered prior to this reading. My initial thoughts were not as positive. I am inclined to be conservative in that students should know how to do the work and not rely on technology to do it for them. While I am still very adamant about that topic, I see the usefulness of
In my research of databases and spreadsheets, I came across a website that is in its 16th year of on-line existence. It’s called the Global Grocery List. You can find this site at http://www.landmark-project.com/ggl/index.html. The site is dedicated to helping students share local grocery prices to build a growing table of data to be used in social studies, science, health, mathematics, and other disciplines. This site is an excellent example of being able to include your students in a global capacity. Students from around the world can participate in this project. It obviously enables them to see prices from around the world. However, this project can be used to show students the impact location has on income, availability of items, and general costs of everyday items. This list gives information that teachers can then use to expand into classroom discussions from food import/export to minimum wage to pricing and unit costs. This project gives students a voice in a global economy. Just the interaction with other students and the research they can input to the project makes it a viable tool for student engagement.
In my future science classroom, I see spreadsheets being used to collect and analyze data. Beautiful graphs and data reports can be generated by students at the touch of a mouse! The students will be able to design their data sheets and be able to see the results of their work automatically. This will combine science with math and language arts and presentation as they produce reports on their experiments.
Until that day….a girl can dream!
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