200 likes | 298 Views
Spreadsheets. Software. This icon indicates that detailed teacher’s notes are available in the Notes Page. This icon indicates the slide contains activities created in Flash. These activities are not editable. For more detailed instructions, see the Getting Started presentation.
E N D
Spreadsheets Software This icon indicates that detailed teacher’s notes are available in the Notes Page. This icon indicates the slide contains activities created in Flash. These activities are not editable. For more detailed instructions, see the Getting Started presentation.
What does the software do? Spreadsheets can: • do all sorts of calculations, both simple and complex, using formulae • usefunctions to help you set up complex formulae • act as simple databases so that you can sort or search your data • plot charts and graphs • change the appearance of fonts, cell backgrounds and borders • control how many decimal places are shown.
What else can it do? Functions can help the user to: • look up data from lists • do specialized calculations in subjects like finance, statistics and trigonometry • experiment with questions, such as “What if the interest rate went up by 1%?” • uselogic such as IF, AND and OR • change the format of a cell depending on what is in it (conditional formatting) • use pivot tables to summarize data • reduce the number of input errors by setting rules (validation).
Lookup table Spreadsheets also include some features you would expect to see in a database. An example of this is the lookup function. This function allows you to search through a table of information and find the relative value – which is why it is called a lookup table. • Like a database, the table has: • field names – Subject, Teacher, Room • records – each row is a different record. For example, record 1 is “English Mrs Ridyard Room A”.
To find out the ICT teacher, you would look down the Subjectcolumn until you found ICT, then across to the Teachercolumn to find the teacher’s name.
The computer does just the same. Let’s look at the function which is entered in cell B7: =VLOOKUP(A7, A2:C5,2) –Mrs Spencer Vertical (i.e. column) lookup (find) Find the word in cell A7 Look between A2:C5 Take the value in column 2
To find the room that ICT is in, you would put the following lookup function in cell C7: =VLOOKUP(A7, A2:C5,3) Vertical (i.e. column) lookup (find) Find the word in cell A7 Look between A2:C5 Take the value in column 3 The answer is 8.
Goal seek Another very useful feature of spreadsheets is goal seek. This can speed up certain calculations. For example, a shop has a box of 50 Easter eggs which they want to sell very quickly as Easter is today. They want to reduce the price and just make a profit of £10. How do they find out the price the eggs have to be sold for? You can take the £10.00 profit required, add it to the cost, and then divide the total by the number of eggs.
Or you can use goal seek. You want to change the profit (cell D6) to £10 by changing theprice of each Easter egg (cell C4). Profit changes to £10.00 Price changes to £1.71
How would you find out what price the eggs need to be to make a £5 profit? How would you find out what price the eggs would need to be sold for to make a £24 profit if they came in boxes of 55? How would you find out how much the eggs must be sold for so the shop can make a profit of £24 if the cost of each box goes up to £80?
Goal seek • If 24 people are waiting • and 3 checkouts are open • they wait 16 minutes.
Goal seek can work out how many checkouts are needed to cut queuing time to 8 minutes. Change the waiting time to eight minutes by changing the number of checkouts.
We need 6 checkouts open to keep waiting time down to 8 minutes.
Who would use it? Spreadsheets are used by: • engineers to testwhether structures are strong enough • business managers to model their finances • scientists to simulate (work out) what might happen in different circumstances • teachers to calculate marks and grades.
Summary • Spreadsheet software is mostly used for simple and complex calculations using formulae. • Spreadsheets are also very useful for plotting charts. • They can be used to sort and search data. • Functions make it easier to set up complicated calculations. • Vlookup looks things up in lists. • Spreadsheet simulations can model situations so that you can ask “What if” questions.