'Excel'lent

Excel is a great way to keep track of grades. I actually keep track of my grades for grad school in an Excel spreadsheet.

I have each class as its own worksheet within a workbook. I have forumulas which calculate the total number of points earned divided by the total number of points available. When I put my grade in for a particular assignment, it tallys automatically as I enter data.

I took this one step further and have a Summary page which pulls the final grade from the corresponding worksheet and calculates my letter grade. Then, it averages out my total grade point average for me. It took a little time to add the formulas and make the individual spreadsheets, but now it's a breeze. All I do now is add my grades for my assignments; everything tallys automatically.

I always know where I am as far as grade point average, etc...

 I also keep track of the hours I work throughout the year. I have a master spreadsheet in which I input the time I arrive, take lunch, come back from lunch and leave work. The hours I work that day are tallied via a formula as well as another formula which calculates how many hours I worked for the entire week. Even further, a formula calculates my hours worked against a 40-hour week to give me a calculation of whether I've worked over or under my hours. (This is usually over - guess I love work).

So Excel is in my life every day and I love it!

Are we doing what is best for our students?

For digital natives, the students in high schools, middle schools and even elementary schools, the use of technology is second nature. Digital natives need face-paced visual and auditory stimulation to peak their interest and allow learning to seep into their brain.

Digital natives have a short attention span, as digital immigrants often believe. They are used to multi-tasking and receiving information quickly. Digital immigrants tend to teach things in a step-by-step basis which digital natives from boring.

One article that stands out is Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants by Marc Prensky (Prensky, 2001) copyright 2001. I found it interesting that digital immigrants tend to teach using ordered tasks, written instructions and learning objectives whereas digital natives would learn better with a computer game that was fast-paced and had allowed random access.

Prensky discussed in his article that many if not all subjects could be geared toward successfully teaching digital natives with a little work and a willingness to change our way of teaching methodologies.

The textbook points out that digital natives’ parents are realizing the importance of utilizing emerging technologies in the classrooms and insisting that teachers incorporate technology into their curriculum. (Shelly, Gunter, & Gunter, 2010) They are seeing the need for their children to have the best exposure to technology in school because it will help them succeed in their future. If we think technology is all around us now image what will be available in our elementary schools’ children when they are our age. The possibilities are endless.

We, as digital immigrants must not only get onboard with using technology in our curriculum but we must find a way to become captains of technology in the classroom. This is not just for our students but also for us; we need to find it important to continue our learning as well. The price we pay for convenience could be too high.

Works Cited

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon , 9 (5).

Shelly, G. B., Gunter, G. A., & Gunter, R. E. (2010). Teachers Discovering Computers Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom. In G. B. Shelly, G. A. Gunter, R. E. Gunter, & P. Conrad (Ed.), Teachers Discovering Computers Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom. Boston, MA, 02210.