I found that out of the common applications used by students doing ICT activities, the spreadsheet is the one they find the most difficult. If I give them simple - to - follow activity sheets for word processing, desktop publishing and presentation graphics, the students don't ask for help very often. However, it's a different story when I give them a spreadsheet activity.

I don't count any graph drawing program as an application which contributes towards ICT skills. While graph drawing programs are a useful tool for improving students' understanding of graphs, and good activity sheets can be devised to achieve this, generally these skills are not transferable.

I once developed a spreadsheet quadratic graphs activity sheet with step - by - step instructions. I found that many students had problems with it. I had given them a table in which to calculate the various x values required to derive the corresponding y values. I was quite surprised when students experienced difficulty in using the power function to derive an x squared value, (its more elegant than just multiplying x by itself) and summing up the various values to get the y value. However I have found that students have no problem with drawing charts from a given table of values.

What makes spreadsheets more difficult then other applications?

The main problem I think with students is they find difficulty with inserting formulae. First of all they need to understand cell references (or addresses), remember to put an equals sign (in MS Excel) in front, make sure they don't put in any spaces, and try to translate the formula into a series of steps. They also need to understand formatting, comma, currency and decimal places.

Once the student has successfully entered the formula, they have to understand how copy and paste works, in terms of relative referencing and absolute referencing. A good example of absolute referencing is when a formula using a constant value which can be updated. e.g., a rate of interest, which might change from time to time. The rate of interest value would be put in a separate cell, and the cell reference included in the formula. To copy and paste the formula, the rate of interest cell address would have to be made absolute, so it wouldn't change along with the other cell addresses.

How do you get students to understand and use more complex features?

As we know, spreadsheets can be used for scenario building, what is commonly known as ‘what if?'. MS Excel has special options, in which a student can do goal seek and scenarios. Goal seek, is the simplest one, and it determines the required inputs to get the desired results. Scenarios allows a student to create and save sets of inputs that produce different results.

As with anything complex, the only way to achieve the desired results is to start simple and build up step by step. However, it is a gradual process which needs to be started early and practiced often.