Thursday, June 16, 2016

Google Sheets, creating a gradesheet

     I liked Google Sheets. I have used Excel before and it is quite useful; however, the formulas can be tricky because they abbreviate everything. In Google Sheets, all of the formula's are spelled out so I knew exactly which one I wanted to use. The only other difference between Excel and Google Sheets that I found while formatting the gradesheet was the way that one can create percentages. In Excel, you can move the decimal place anyhow you want. In Google Sheets, I was not allowed to make a whole number a percentage. Therefore, when I put "95" in a cell and clicked the "%" sign, the percentage became "9500.00%" and I could not decrease the percentage using the decimal moving buttons. I discovered this after I had put all of the information in so I had to go back and change the grades from whole numbers to decimal numbers. The problem was fixed after that. Formatting the Final Grade was easy as well because the cell formulas work much like a scientific calculator and you can just separate out numbers and equations within a cell formula using parenthesis.
     Here is a LINK to the gradesheet if you would like to look at it. I didn't create a "Midterm" section because the section with "Final Grade" would be the midterm grade at midterms. Thus, at midterms the grades would be recorded elsewhere and then the grades would continue to change as the year went on.
     I understand how Google Sheets can be used to meet the Mathematical Practice 3 Standard: "Construct viable arguments..."  However, I am struggling to understand how it could be used for the second part: "Critique the reasoning of others." Well, now that I think about it, you could take someone's spoken argument, give the points of the argument mathematical representations on the spreadsheet and then plug those into a formula of some kind. If that were the case, then I see how Google Sheets could be used to enhance critical thinking in students because it gives them a tool for dissecting arguments and thinking through them to see if they are logical or not. Also, I guess another way that it helps with the mathematical standard is that it can be used as a tool to demonstrate one's thinking and not simply as a help for thinking. Students can create graphs and charts to display their reasoning and arguments to other students.

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