How Can Spreadsheets Help Teachers?

The electronic spreadsheet originated in the halls of Harvard Business School around 1978. Student Dan Bricklin fathered the idea that later became VisiCalc, an application many consider to be the first killer application for the personal computer. Years later, the computerized spreadsheet idea is still going strong, with Microsoft Excel being one of the most popular of the available spreadsheet applications. It creates an on-screen workspace of columns and rows for the user, and makes it easy to organize and manipulate numerical data without the need for a more sophisticated database. There are several ways that teachers can benefit from managing their unique data in a spreadsheet environment.

Track Grades

Teachers can enter each student's name in the first column of a spreadsheet and then continue to plot grades for each assignment in the cells adjacent to the student's name.

Track Attendance

The electronic spreadsheet can support a paper copy version of students' weekly attendance. Teachers can enter students' names in the first column, leaving one blank row above and typing calendar dates for each day of the quarter across the row. A numerical value or an "X"can be entered down the column into the cells for days that the student was present.

Compute Grade Average

Once data has been plotted, teachers can easily computer a student's grade average for the year by using a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel. It has hundreds of built-in formulas and functions, like the AVERAGE function, which is used to compute a host of financial and statistical scenarios.

References

• A Brief History of Spreadsheets
• Teacher's Network: How to Incorporate Technology in the Classroom