Today is the first time I have taught my students spreadsheet and charting skills using not Microsoft Office but, Google Spreadsheets in Drive. I think all my lessons should transfer over seamlessly but time will tell. Anyone have experience making this transition? Please share your wisdom!
I'm really hoping this transition goes well since these lessons are so valuable for their employable future! Next to being able to type better my class alumni who stay in touch say 'excel' skills are the most important thing they learned in my class.
Why Excel skills are important in the job market! http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_are_Excel_skills_are_important_in_the_job_market
ReplyDeleteHI Jon, There should be no major differences. Most Excel formulas work in Spreadsheets, especially the most used. Though one thing missing is scripting in the Excel app. Though, there are some cool script workarounds in Google. Not to mention the more collaborative tools.
ReplyDeleteCheck out the Autocrat script you can build on top of a Google sheet. You can have a form auto fill the spreadsheet, then email out a document to the people that filled out the form. So many uses for the classroom!
http://www.youpd.org/autocrat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOxycix7iOo
Ed
The interaction between Google Forms and spreadsheets is so handy. My kids have loved using it to create student interest surveys and I use it regularly for student assessments.
DeleteWell...I found my first difference. In Google Spreadsheets you can not select noncontiguous cells by using the command key (CTRL on PC) to select for instance A3 and C4. You can only select continuous ranges or blocks of cells like A3:C4 which includes everything in-between. I found a forum about this disappointing fact here: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/docs/Lf3eNpF-kZ4
DeleteThis proves difficult when trying to chart or graph separate cell ranges of data in the same chart.
Bummer!