Syllabus

toc =Workshop Support Wiki Syllabus=

About this Workshop Support Wiki
Using technology to teach students opens a whole new world of opportunity. With your imagination, the implementation of technology in the classroom allows you to take your lesson plans to a new level of teaching. This site will reinforce the use various technologies to teach educators about the use of spreadsheets in the classroom. As in the workshop, it is not intended to teach solely about the topic of spreadsheets, but to train teachers about numerous technologies at their disposal. Various e-learning principles will be reiterated to assist teachers in planning for future lesson plans.

Who will use this Support Wiki?
This site is designed for teachers of high school students and adult learners. Viewers should have a basic knowledge of spreadsheet creation. Prerequisite material is available for those that would like to re-acquaint themselves regarding their skills following the workshop.

Wiki Support Description
This site is designed to support topics learned in the All about Spreadsheets workshop. Specific topics include the use of various technologies that can be implemented to suit the needs of different technology subjects and audiences. While the concentration is on the use of spreadsheets in the classroom, many of the concepts can be used to teach different office applications e.g. Microsoft Access, PowerPoint, and Word. The difficulty of the lessons can be controlled based on the individual participant’s classroom.

Lessons and Activities are structured as follows:


 * Day 1:** Use Google Docs as a tool to teach spreadsheets with a focus on those that do not access to Microsoft Excel outside of the classroom.
 * Day 2:** Create online games to reinforce spreadsheet terms.
 * Day 3:** Use Animoto to create movies that demonstrate advanced charting options.
 * Day 4:** Use a Blog for student/teacher interaction outside of the classroom.
 * Day 5:** **(Active)** Create screen casts to demonstrate advanced formulas.

Each day will be filled with an introduction, activities, and hands-on exercises.

Wiki Support Goals/Objectives
After working through each day of this site, participants will be able to:
 * Define new teaching tools and relate them to lessons they create.
 * Use a wide range of technologies to introduce topics in the classroom.
 * Appreciate the scope of technology as a teaching tool in a modern day environment.

Project Descriptions
Day 1: Google Docs is a valuable tool used to create documents, presentations, spreadsheets, forms, drawings, and tables. Teachers and students can create, upload, and collaborate in real-time using this online tool. You will learn how to use the Google Docs Spreadsheet application to teach your students about managing information in a group environment (Goggle For Educators, 2011).

Day 2: Simply memorizing terms for any class is difficult at any level. As teachers, you can create games that allow students to relate to important terms instead memorization that can be easily forgotten. You will use different websites to create crossword puzzles and scrambled word anagrams. You will also view additional sites with online games that you can use in your classroom.

Day 3: There are numerous ways to graphically display data. Spreadsheet applications allow individuals to create different types of charts depending on the raw data. You will use two different online websites to create movies that will teach advanced charting techniques. Your movie can be as informative and entertaining as you like.

Day 4: During this time of smart phones and tablet computing, more parents and students are communicating electronically. As teachers, you can use this method of communication to benefit your classroom by creating a blog where students can ask questions outside of the classroom and parents can stay informed about what is happening including assignments, quizzes, and tests. You will learn how to setup a blog for classroom use.

Day 5 (**Active**): “Studies of top performers in music, games such as chess and Scrabble, and sports point to the criticality of practice in the development of expertise” (Clark & Mayer, 2011, p. 255). In and out of the classroom, students need to practice what you are teaching. Screen casts are one way to reinforce student comprehension. You will learn how to create screen casts for spreadsheets solutions and posting them to YouTube for student review at any time from anywhere.