Spreadsheets

I personally have never been a big fan of Excel. Reason being that I never knew how to use it and just gave up on it because I thought it was to hard to learn. But after going over this program in class I really do like it now. I think it can be useful in class to show the students different types of graphs, how to organize things, and is just a good visual aid for those learners that learn from seeing things. I also think that using excel for your grade book could be beneficial because of the time you save from having to breakout calculators and pencilling in everything. Plus it is a lot easier to change grades and it makes it look a lot cleaner vs. pencil erasing. I would definitely use this program in my classroom. Anything that would make my job easier is always put to good use in my classroom.

I think as a teacher we would use these things to lighten our work load is a lot of the reason. I think another good reason is because it make things look more professional. One of the advantages over a calculator would be that once it is on the spreadsheet it is calculated and recorded. But if you do something with a calculator then you write it on the paper, then recorded it in the grade book, and then most schools make you put it into the computer anyways. So why not cut all that other stuff out and just use the spread sheet and be done with it?? Makes sense to me to just use the spreadsheet.

Inspiration Program

I was really amazed by what the Inspiration Program has to offer. I think that the information tools that students or teachers can access would be very helpful in the class room. I found different ways of making outlines, graphs, and different types of presentation. I think that this program would be bring organization to the classroom and help those students that are visual learners.

I really like the idea of using a program like this in the classroom or even as a tool for us educators. I am wanting to be a P.E. Teacher and I think that this program could help me outline my lesson plan and show me the certain steps so that I make sure that I don't skip a step. So in other words I think that it is a good organization skills. I also think think that the program would be great in the classroom because students don't have the best handwriting and this will make it easier on teachers to be able to read what the student are trying to write. Being able to do this program I think will also allow the students to be able to help each other with ideas and brainstorm on things. Sometimes when we are stuck on an idea all we need is a little push to get us going. So I am in great favor of using this program in the classroom or even outside of the classroom.