Y5 Bottom Set Maths Group and Excel

[laserblazer]

I just went into an ICT Suite where they were entering information and then producing a barchart. It was obvious that the teacher needed a hand so I pitched in. They found following simple instructions very difficult and had to been spoon-fed. But, they all knew how to format the graph with pretty colours. Some even managed to colour code individual bars!

So, contrary to popular belief, these kids can do it and remember how to do it, when it is fun.

[enjay]

For basic graphing (esp. with a low ability or young class), consider 2Simple instead - much easier to use than Excel; you can produce bar charts simply by clicking on the relevant item to add 1 to the chart.

[Oops_my_bad]

What's more worrying is that these kids can do it yet the staff struggle

[Daleus]

At our primary they use a piece of software called "The Wizards Apprentice" to learn spreadsheets and whatnot.

Apparntly it is 'excellent' as a shoehorn into everyone's favourite spreadsheet application..

[TechSupp]

But then again Excel no matter how much we hate big Bill monopolising everything is what they will use out of school, so I try to get them used to it. Anyway, using Excel to produce graphs is just one ofthe things they should be doing to cover ICT objectives in Y5, so its cross curricular use and as you found, they like having all the options to play with.