Transcript Car Buying: An EXCEL©lent Adventure

Car Buying: An
EXCEL©lent Adventure
Brian Lim, CSUS
Bruce Moon, Natomas
Charter School
Problems:
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How to give high school independent
study students basic knowledge of
spreadsheets in a meaningful context
How to provide some basic financial
knowledge when the course of study
didn’t have a natural place for it
Solutions Considered:
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Separate course in personal finance- too
much to handle in time frame
Separate section of the required
technology course- too boring without a
context
Solution: A unit combining
spreadsheets and car buying
What do students do?
Car shopping & finance- Use
WWW and spreadsheets to
 Find price of new cars
 Use an online service to
discover the “total cost of
ownership”
 Compare used versus new,
using online tool
 Price insurance for different
cars
 Compare leasing vs. buying
 Compare keeping an old
car, leasing, and buying and
saving the difference
What do students do?
Spreadsheet basics
 Fill
 Import data from
webpage
 Functions
 Formulas
 Audit print
 Freeze frame
What we did
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Determined how much was feasible
Identified web resources
Broke the task into chunks
Determined what was important for
students to know about spreadsheets
Found car buying contexts for the
spreadsheet basics
Tools Used for Tasks
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Adobe Acrobat and web browsers for
saving webquests and financial
education sites for review
Howie’s Quick Screen Shot Capture
Adobe Photoshop Elements
Dreamweaver
Canon digital camera
Resources
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Jumpstart Coalition
Eastern Michigan University: National
Center for Consumer Education
The Webquest Page- SDSU
Blue Web’N- SBC Knowledge Web
Landmark-Project.Com
www.4teachers.org- including RubricStar
Results?
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STAR testing delayed the
implementation, but the one student who
started loved it
Parents welcome the personal finance
education
Other teachers like the unit
Links and Contact Information
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Site: http://www.teachertech.us/PT3
E-Mail: [email protected]