Week 6

I've had to work with spreadsheets on a very limited basis throughout work and schooling. Usually, it's been limited to just filling in boxes that already had formulas put in or just putting in a few pieces of information and making an easy little graph. But now, actually being able to know the formulas and having done a bit more research on ways to use spreadsheets for educational purposes, it seems that programs like Excel bring on a million new uses. It's amazing that I let something so simple and useful go by unused and unexplored, but now seems to be the perfect time to be learning stuff like this. For use in the classroom, spreadsheets would be amazing for stuff like attendance and grading, but also for assignments in pretty much any subject.
I guess I kind of assume that finding the appropriate information online isn't a tough deal. Sure, it might be hard to find what you're looking for, but I'm no Internet/computer genius and I'm generally able to get things done. Though thinking about it, and thinking about the tips in this weeks reading, I suppose I can see where students would have a tougher time. Should things go the way I want them too, I'll be working with lower elementary grades, so their use of the Internet will be even more limited, but a teenager may find it even more difficult to find what is true, accurate and useful. A story that always gets me: the daughter (5th grade?) of a professor here at CSUSM was doing a report on octopuses and she of course Googled octopus, and found a site, about 4th on the list, about the endangered tree octopus. Now of course, this is a fictional site, but it is put together very well, professional looking and very misleading, especially for a younger student who may or may not know any better. I suppose this just goes to show that all the things Caulfield and Symans discuss in their article in order to assist students in obtaining the proper information.