Educ 3412: Computers In Education

Assignment 4. Spreadsheets ROCK

Spreadsheets can be useful tools to make tedious or meticulous data management tasks more accurate and less bothersome. This assignment will give you time and experience managing education data with spreadsheets.

Goals:

• Create spreadsheets to manage data
• Graphically illustrate or represent numbers
• Utilize hyperlinks to communicate your spreadsheet's information
• Identify multiple uses of spreadsheets in teaching and learning
• Explain benefits, costs, and important considerations for utilizing spreadsheets in education

Rationale:

Professional educators are required to manage data including grades, finances, and beyond. Spreadsheets are one way to do this professionally.

Assignment description:

Solo or with a classmate, brainstorm information related to your profession which you'd like to manage. Perhaps it's a budget, student grades, data specific to your discipline, a grant proposal, or other ideas which appeal to you.

Design your spreadsheet with the following features:

1. 15+ rows of information
2. 15+ columns of information
3. Column headings and row labels as appropriate
4. A variety of mathematical formulas
5. Cell properties such as formatting, font, size, style, color, alignment, orientation, cell shading, merging, and related options via your formatting palette
6. 1+ image which helps illustrate your content
7. 1+ hyperlink
8. 1+ chart or graph which automatically updates important data
9. Sorting and/or filtering to enhance readability
10. Other design considerations which enhance easy access and understanding of data

On Sheet One:

1. Record your name(s) and intended professions
2. Introduce your purpose; help your reader understand why you chose your spreadsheet content
3. Change the name of sheet one to: Author(s)

On Sheet Two:

1. Create your spreadsheet
2. Include anything else which helps a reader understand your spreadsheet
3. Change the name of sheet two to: Data

On Sheet Three:

1. Create your chart
2. Include anything else which helps a reader understand your chart
3. Change the name of sheet two to: Chart

On Sheet Four:

After doing some online research, recommend an electronic gradebook (or for educators who will not work with grades, identify another type of data manager related to spreadsheets)

1. Record three electronic gradebook (or related software) vendors.
2. Hyperlink the name of each to a web-page describing each product.
3. Identify a variety of appealing features of each vendor's product which likely exceed what you could build with ease
4. Identify the cost of each software application
5. Use your spreadsheet average formula to calculate the average price of these three pieces of software
6. Modify and format your spreadsheet for optimal readability.
7. Highlight the most appealing of the three options
8. Explain why you would choose it rather than the other options
9. Change the name of sheet four to: Reflection

Submitting your workbook to Dan:

• Please proofread and spell check your work
• Save your work as Username3412Spsht.xls
• Submit it to Dan on due date via UMD's webdrop 2 folder

Checklist

• ___Workbook is free of spelling and grammatical errors
• ___ 15+ labeled rows and columns of information are present
• ___ A variety of mathematical formulas
• ___ Cells are formatted for ease of reading via your formatting palette
• ___ 1+ image helps illustrate your content
• ___ 1+ hyperlink links content to related page
• ___ 1+ chart or graph represents important data
• ___ Sorting and/or filtering enhance readability
• ___ Workbook contains Authors, Data, Visual, Reflection pages in order
• ___ Workbook is saved as Username.xls
• ___ Submit it to Dan on due date via UMD's Webdrop 2 system

Evaluation Rubric