Blog # 7

Hello Classmates,
I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Excel this week. When I first started using Excel, I found it to be a little intimidating. However, after I learned a little about it, I found Excel to be extremely useful! I thought I was very familiar with Excel because I use it for work frequently, but I definitely learned a few new things from this lesson. From the tutorial, I learned some new formulas. For work, I often use the sum and average formulas so I am very familiar with them, but rarely do I use the percentage and division formulas. Besides the percentage and division formulas, the tutorial included all the formulas I could ever think to use as well as how to create graphs within a spreadsheet. I enjoyed learning about graphs because I think it makes the spreadsheet much more visually appealing. Regarding the Excel quiz at the end of the tutorial however, I felt it was a little bit easier than it could have been. I enjoyed the review and the idea of the quiz, but I felt it could have been a little more challenging. Questions such as, “The Advantage of Using a Spreadsheet is:” and, “The Intersection of a Row and a Column is Called:” could have been replaced with questions about types of formulas and the process for entering in those different formulas.
I think, “Teaching Students to Use the Internet as a Research Tool,” is a great article for teachers. Most students use the web for their research anyway so I think it is very important to teach them how to use it correctly. The article gives many good tips for web users regarding valuable sites. For example, the fact that if you have to pay for the information on a website, that information is probably of value. Also, a good way to find a reliable URL is from an article’s bibliography. For example, if a student is doing a project on asteroids and has access to one good article on asteroids already, a good way to find more credible information is to check that article’s bibliography. The article also discusses using search engines properly. For example, it may be a good idea to use search engines that specialize in one subject and do not search the entire web. One example the article give is ‘Argos.’ ‘Argos,’ specializes in medieval worlds. Also, search engines such as Magellan guarantee not to link the student to pornography or hate groups. The article as gives examples and descriptions of websites designed for teachers such as Teachers.Net and many others. Given the broad use of the internet in education today, I think this article is a must read for teachers!