Data is something that everone deals with everday of their lives. Whether it is numbers or information, we always make lists and accumulate information. My group did the presentation on Hands on Data and I personally learnt a lot about databases and spreadsheets. I have had a fair bit of experience with spreadsheets but little did I know about other programs which deal with spreadsheets outside of Microsoft Excel. Not only this, I learnt about the vast amounts of information which can be stored and retrieved in Databases. I think we have to be careful when using databases with students to not confuse them too much with irrelevent information.
I have mainly been teaching lower primary and haven’t seen a lot of work done with spreadsheets? Does anyone think there is scope for using spreadsheets with lower primary?
Hi Lew,
I was also lucky enough to present on the topic of hands on data and looking at spreadsheets and databases. In answering your question about whether spreadsheets could be used in lower primary, like you I have not seen spreadsheets used in lower primary let alone upper primary and after presenting the idea I feel that they have a lot of scope to them across all grades.
I think the great thing with spreadsheets is that the data can be turned into a graph or chart and now with the introduction of interactive smartboards I can see how spreadsheets can be used.
Whilst teaching kindergarten on prac last year we looked at graphs and tables and collecting data using their lunch boxes.
If the classroom was equipped with an interactive smartboard and I had the knowledge I know have with using spreadsheets I would most definitely have used a spreadsheet document to show them a visual representation of their lunchbox data through a graph.