Interactive Excel Spreadsheets: A Computational and Conceptual Learning Tool for Mathematics and Science Scott A. Sinex Department of Physical Sciences and Engineering Prince George’s Community College Presented at the Computation and Science for Teachers Workshop held at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Pittsburgh, PA on June 2006
Why Excel? Ready off-the-shelf software Found in the work-place Found on home computers too Easy to use by students Can it be an interactive learning tool? (no marcos or VBA programming, just computation via formulas)
...as a tool in math and science Great for handling, graphing, and analyzing data Easy transforming of data such as taking the log Regression and goodness-of-fit So a great tool for mathematical modeling of data and presenting graphs Using Excel for... Scientific Data Pre-set calculations & graphs – just add data
… a mathematical model Cookies stack
The modeling process…
...so now to Excelets! Excelets are interactive Excel spreadsheets A “Javaless” applet! A simulation of a mathematical model or an illustration of a simple concept A tool for higher-order thinking and illustrating science process and a tool that is easy to construct!!!!!
So let’s take a tour of the interactive features available in Excel Start tour ! Click on links at the bottom of the next five slides to get the interactive spreadsheets
Interactive features
Flipping pennies heads tails
Regression Find it in
Derivative
Circuits Created by Charlotte Trout
Now let’s construct a simple Excelet! So let’s go into Excel We will explore the equation of a straight line, y = mx +b. Tutorial for a quadratic equation – click hereclick here
As a learning tool... Active engagement of students Numerical experimentation Derive the ideal mathematical model “What if” scenarios Science processes –predictions –graphical interpretation –conclusions –random and systematic error (ideal to real) See Investigating Types of ErrorsInvestigating Types of Errors Model Simulation science excelets
The “How to” resources... Developer's Guide to Excelets: Dynamic and Interactive Visualization with "Javaless" Applets or Interactive Excel Spreadsheets Tutorial, instructions, and a variety of interactive Excel spreadsheet examples Resource list for mathematics and science
More info... Scott Sinex – See course webpages and publications Webpages embedded in PowerPoint – get LiveWeb (