My Gradesheet

Overall, I think that Google Spreadsheet is a lot like Microsoft Excel. When I first opened the app, I noticed that the general layout of the spreadsheet is nearly identical to Excel. I have always used Excel when making a spreadsheet, so it was nice to have similarities between the two. My sister, who is an accountant, came over as I was doing my spreadsheet and she sat down to watch how it worked. She uses Excel on a daily basis, so it was neat to see her reaction to Google Spreadsheet and hear her compare the two different apps. Any of the differences to Spreadsheet from Excel, in my opinion, help in Spreadsheet's favor. I really liked the easy accessibility of all the functions within Spreadsheet. To me, it seemed that all of the functions were presented in a simpler way, rather than Excel, which I feel has a little bit more of a scavenger hunt to find out to use things like a SUM or AVERAGE function. Also, like with everything we have used in the Google apps, the ability to save it to Drive and work on it wherever is a HUGE plus. My sister accidentally close my app, and she began to freak out. I simply went to Google and to my Drive and there it was. That really impressed her, too. I think the one area of Spreadsheet that I can still use a bit of work on is the formulas. I had to work through those very slowly, making sure to use the right cell and the right function with them. A bit more practice with understanding the formulas, and I should be good to go. To view My Gradesheet, click here.

Google Spreadsheets allow teachers to visually meet areas of the CCSS for many levels of education. A big part of the CCSS is that teachers need to visually and tangibly present material to their students. Spreadsheet does just that. Spreadsheet is a great example of allowing a student to "capture the 'processes and proficiencies' of mathematics," and not just what they acquire simply by knowledge (p. 93). Spreadsheet allows students to take what they know and have learned and orchestrate it into a tangible piece of evidence and shows their understanding. Spreadsheet does not do the math for the students, but it is a tool to help students explore mathematical concepts that are relevant in today's college and career arenas. It meets a Standard for 6th grade math, which requires that students "Understand that a set of data collected to answer a statistical question has a distribution, which can be described by its center, spread, and overall shape" (p. 96). With the CCSS pushing students to use certain, appropriate tools to help acclimate them to the approaching outside, Spreadsheet is the perfect mathematical tool to achieve their Standards.