SPREADSHEETS

Spreadsheets are designed to organize and manage numerical data. Teachers can use spreadsheets to keep budgets and grade books, and to help teach math topics. I personally like to use spreadsheets to keep all of my grades for my two groups of kids. Using a spreadsheet helps me to keep up with the grades, and with assignments students are missing.

Spreadsheets can be very beneficial to teachers and students.
1. Save time: They allow teachers and students to complete calculations quickly.
2. Organizes and Displays of Data: Their capability to store information in columns make them ideal tools for designing informational charts like schedules and attendance lists.
3. Supports asking “what if” questions: They help people visualize the impact change in numbers. A student can play with the numbers and see the results immediately, probing the student to ask “what if” questions.
4. Increases Motivation in Mathematics: Spreadsheets can make math concepts graphic where students can see how they work. This can create that motivation in the kids who see some math concepts dull and boring.

I am a Social Studies and ELA teacher. I would really like to learn how I can use spreadsheets with these two contents. I can see how spreadsheets could effectively be used for math like using it for problem solving and analyzing data, but I would really like to explore more on the integration of spreadsheets in ELA and SS.