Skip to main content

Excel Graphing: Integrated Science

Excel was used in a graphing activity during Integrated Science (regular level only). Students gathered data, input the date into a chart in excel, then graphed the data using the Bar chart tools as well as pie chart tools.

Tech Skills learned:
  • Excel introduction, data entry
  • simple sum formula
  • copy/pase/paste special
  • graph tools and formatting the graphs
Benefits:
  • Introduced and reinforced graphing in Excel 2007 prior to graphing in a formal lab report.
  • They were great at helping each other out, and worked cooperatively with the teachers.
  • Some students emerged as leaders and mentors who would not have participated as leaders in a traditional lesson setting.

Challenges:

  • Some students did not complete the exercise and had to finish on their own.
  • Space in the lab is minimal, so movement for teachers is a bit of a struggle.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy online

www.zygotebody.com used to be Google Body using Zygote's imagery... now Zygote owns it. Use FireFox!!! You can switch from male to female, select a body system like skeletal, cardiovascular, etc. Rotate and zoom... The left side has sliders to move from one system to another, or slide horizontally to turn on and off systems. You can have several on at once. You can search for things by name, and pin them so they stay put when switching systems. I noticed that when a pin or label has a blue + sign, clicking it expands that label to more sub-labels that you can pin. Try this with the brain stem! The program requires WebGL, which seems to not be included in IE...and doesn't work on iPad's safari browser either. But works fine in FireFox!

Infographics - "More than words can say"

We've seen man eye-catching and engrossing infographics lately. Here's a great one... http://www.studyblue.com/projects/infographic-mobile-studying-online-flashcards-on-smartphones/ and here's "40 useful infographics " that present a range of styles and topoics . http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/40-useful-and-creative-infographics/ Here's a mini course on infographics in education, designed by the NY Times: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/teaching-with-infographics-places-to-start/ And here's a great list of infographic information and samples: http://www.delicious.com/jkrauss/infographics As a teaching tool, here's a list of infographic sources: floating sheep: www.floatingsheep.com cool infographics : www.coolinfographics.com GapMinder : www.gapminder.com information is beautiful: www.informationisbeautiful.net But what about having students CREATE infographics as projects? Here's a great article! htt...

LanSchool does Polling!

All teachers should be using LanSchool to monitor and restrict what students are doing in class... there are other more appropriate times to shop for prom dresses, work on art, and look at pictures of their favorite stars. But POLLING is a really great way to engage all of your students, and for you to use formative assessment. Simply use the VOTE button on LanSchool to send everyone a question, and you see the anonymous results as they are submitted. You can even prepare questions ahead of time and load on the fly so you are not typing them in while students wait. Please ask Laura or David (or Jamie!) how to do this. Or give it a try in class, it's simple. We have other ways to poll students , like PollEverywhere .com, but they take more time to setup. However PollEverywhere can be a web link that students access 24/7 for out-of-class polling.