ICT and common misconceptions - A Practical Guide to Teaching Computing and ICT in the Secondary School - page 121

• Using too many or inappropriate images, sounds and effects. Give pupils clear
guidance on this.
• Not thinking enough about the verbal element of presentations and the use of
body language. Teach them that most of the presentation's message is
transmitted this way, make the verbal element and body language a significant
part of the assessment criteria, and encourage pupils to rehearse presenting.
• Creating slides, or other written elements for presentations that are too wordy.
A slide should only summarise and support the verbal presentation. Make
sure you model good practice.
• Forgetting that anything published online is not private. Remind them
regularly about e-safety.
Task 7.3
Other related software
Research-related software: social networks, wikis, blogs, forum, Twitter, video
publishing, video-conferencing, email. How could they be used in the classroom?
What are the likely misconceptions and how could these be avoided?
SPREADSHEET SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING: KEY
CONCEPTS, COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM
Some of the key concepts that need to be covered are:
• What a spreadsheet actually is and what it would be used for. They are often
interested to know that a spreadsheet was originally a large sheet of paper
that was spread out to show accounts or other data in rows and columns; a
spreadsheet in ICT is a computer program that simulates a physical
spreadsheet by capturing, displaying, and manipulating data arranged in
rows and columns. They are unlikely to have come across them outside
school, so explaining why they need to learn about them is very important.
Give them a range of real-world examples and try to find ways they could
use them in school or at home: e.g. managing simple accounts for a school
trip; modelling a science experiment; recording players' performances for a
team. Spreadsheets are discussed further in the section on Modelling in
Chapter 6 .
ADVICE: Include some complex and large examples of spreadsheets. The ones
they tend to produce will be fairly small and they may think it would be easier to
use a calculator, so show the power of a spreadsheet to handle complexity and
test hypotheses.
• Formula and Functions. Explain the difference and show them a range of
functions. Remember to use correct terminology. For example, use the term
'summation' when showing them the formulae and/or button for adding up a
row/column of figures. There is a lot of mathematical language common both
to learning spreadsheets and mathematics in schools.