Chapter 9: Spreadsheets in the Classroom

After viewing a number of presentations teaching the use of spreadsheets, I can't figure out for the life of me how I would change these 'lessons' to fit the needs of my future band students. So I took a different approach, and decided to change them for my (future) Spanish students. This was much easier.

It seemed to me that the lesson I could most easily adapt to Spanish was a presentation on volcanoes. This lesson had the students look up some basic information about specific volcanoes, and input that info into a spreadsheet in order to create some graphs of comparison.

Now, I believe that volcanoes are very different from a foreign language. However, the principles taught using the spreadsheet are somewhat the same. Instead of the question, "how often does a volcano erupt?" I can ask the question, "what is the ratio of Spanish-speaking countries to the rest of the world?" Then I can show that information in a graph to make it easier to interpret.

I said that I couldn't figure out a musical application, but I figured a different spreadsheet might work better. So I used my own M&M Spreadsheet and changed it for instruments in the band room: How many of each instrument do I have, and how many of each instrument do I need? Or rather, how many players will I need? This could be useful at the start of the year when I am not sure what instrumentation I will have (student-wise that is) so I can show the students what I have and what I need. Then I would be able to ask students if they would like to learn a different instrument than one they already play and switch things up a bit. It is entirely possible that at our first rehearsal, I will have 20 French horns and zero tubas (yikes!). I can show this data to the students and ask for their cooperation and reduce the number of horns and put them on different, more necessary instruments (such as a bassoon).

I'm sure that I could figure out other ways to use a spreadsheet in a band room, given enough time and motivation, but those are things that I am somewhat lacking at present.