Life in Education

Spreadsheets are something I feel I under-utilize.  My wife works at Ford Motor Co. in headquarters, and says she is constantly using spreadsheets to collect and analyze data, organize presentations, and use the myriad formulas to quantify her work as a psychologist.  Inside the classroom, I feel that I rarely use spreadsheets.  To me, they seem to be little more than a way to organize data, which is exactly what I use them for: entering grades and calculating averages, growth, etc.  Occasionally, we will use them in our PD as a way to organize which teachers use different techniques, or organizing our units.  While these are all certainly valid uses for spreadsheets, I just feel like such a useful tool could be put to better use, and I certainly do not use them every single day.  Because of my relative lack of experience with them, rather than utilize formulas built in to Excel or Google Sheets, I will simply pull out a calculator to calculate growth and c...

I use databases on a regular basis.  In Royal Oak Schools, we use MiStar, which is a database program that houses each student's attendance, demographic information, report card information.  I can log on from any computer and run a report that easily shows students' pertinent information, as well as any records that I have kept for that student including report card information from previous marking periods, which also includes any notes I have left regarding that student.  While this is a wildly convenient system that allows me to easily track each student, it has not quite caught up to the district.  We are in our first year of standards based grading, which is a very different system than years past.  As a result, MiStar's grade book feature, which formerly would link grade book grades to standards on report cards and had an auto-calculate feature, is currently disabled.  Therefore, I have to keep a separate database through Google Sheets for my grades,...

I use word processing in my classroom nearly every day.  I use it to create worksheets, assessments, and newsletters.  It seems that I am so used to using word processing, that I hardly even notice at this point. The basic format for Word, Google Docs, etc. is so seemingly universal, that I hardly notice the difference in formatting.  That being said, students hardly ever use word processing in my class.  Meeting for only 25 minutes, we hardly have time for students to log onto computers, much less create word processing documents.  I would love to have students create presentations, brochures, etc. that highlight what they have learned in my class about the Spanish language and culture.  However, time is simply not available for my students to complete such tasks.  With nearly every student having technology available at home, there could possibly be some at-home application, so long as I am sensitive to students current workload.  Being a spe...