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Excel for Educators at Thurston Middle School, LBUSD

As long as I'm sharing photos this afternoon... on Tuesday I was in the Laguna Beach USD to deliver an Excel for Educators class at Thurston Middle School. Look at the view (right) from the parking lot where I left my little Ford Focus (not my car, but the exact model, wheels and everything). Can you imagine going to school there? Or teaching there? I feel like I am on vacation when I visit. :)

In two hours, we did the M&Ms lesson (as an introduction to data entry, formating, formulas, and graphing), covered David H. Jonassen's theories on using spreadsheets as Mindtools, and had time for each participant to brainstorm a classroom application for excel. My favorite? A history teachers plan to create a simulation using the four elements of imperialism as a variables. The English teachers also enjoyed Jonassen's poetry lesson plan, originally created for databases. (See Computers as Mindtools for Schools: Engaging Crtitical Thinking, pp. 44-45).

-Mark