It's Alive! Taming the Data Beast with Google Spreadsheets

Want to become a tamer of the data using Google Spreadsheets? This dynamic workshop, led by two Google Certified Teachers, will get you on your way to becoming a Google spreadsheet master!

Agenda

1. Introduction to Spreadsheets

2. Overview of Menus

3. Collaborative Uses for Teachers

4. Uses with Students

5. Functions

6. Gadgets

7. Forms

Introduction to Spreadsheets

Overview of Menus

Uses for Teachers/Administrators

• Customizable seating charts

  • Courtesy of Daniel Rezac, GCT

• • Departmental Planning

  • PLC Data sharing/evaluation/planning

  • Shared projects with other schools/classrooms

Uses for Students

• • Flashcards

    • With the flashcard gadget you can create interactive flashcards quickly and easily.

• • Make a copy of the flashcard template

  • Bars of stuff

    • Can be used for almost any purpose. Any example shared by Kern Kelly, GCT is of a reading list that students fill out and

    • their data is tracked

• • • • • Click Here for a copy of the BookList Template

• • Wordfind

    • Use "magic fill" or paste in your spelling words and you have an instant word search. Definitely not higher order thinking, but it still can be fun for younger students who are still developing reading literacy.

• • Other Uses

  • Group projects centered around data collection

  • Brainstorming (group/whole class)

  • Introduction to Scientific Method

  • Spreadsheets + forms for grading rubrics

  • Book review (form)

Functions

There are many functions that can be used with Google Spreadsheets. A comprehensive list of all functions built into spreadsheets can be viewed at this link. For this session, we have chosen to emphasize some of the more interesting functions that pull information in from the web.

• • ImportHtml

  • =ImportHtml(URL, "list" | "table", index). This functions allows you to import the data in a particular table or list from an HTML page. The arguments to the function are as follows:

    • URL - the url of the HTML page

    • either "list" or "table" to indicate what type of structure to pull in from the webpage. If it's "list," the function looks for the contents of <UL>, <OL>, or <DL> tags; if it's "table," it just looks for <TABLE> tags.

    • index - the 1-based index of the table or the list on the source web page. The indices are maintained separately so there might be both a list #1 and a table #1.

• For an example of this in action, we have created a screencast that walks you through the process. At first it seems pretty complicated, but after a few tries you'll find it's actually quite easy. WATCH THE SCREENCAST

  • GoogleLookup

  • =GoogleLookup(entity, attribute). This functions allows you to lookup said "attribute" for each "entity" in your spreadsheet. The arguments to the function are as follows:

    • entity - the item that you're going to gather information on.

    • attribute - What are you going to lookup. This will be what is used in the Google Query to lookup information for your entity. Population, price, value, size, etc.

For an example of this in action, we have created a screencast that walks you through the process. WATCH THE SCREENCAST

Gadgets

A spreadsheet gadget is a small program that interacts with the content of a spreadsheet. It is visually instantiated either within the spreadsheet itself or on another web page that supports gadgets, such as iGoogle.

Spreadsheets gadgets can:

• • Add specific features to a spreadsheet

  • Combine spreadsheets data with web content

  • Visualize spreadsheet data in unique ways

  • Present information from a spreadsheet on other web pages

To see how existing spreadsheet gadgets are used, visit this page of samples.

Source: http://code.google.com/apis/spreadsheets/gadgets/

Forms

Forms can be used for anything you want to collect information on. Uses include: spelling tests, self-grading quizzes, lunch count, science labs, and the list goes on. They're super easy to set up too! Below is an example of a science lab data collection form. You can even make a copy of it for yourself.