Crossword Puzzle

When I started working in this assignment I thought, "Why do I have to use Excel when there are programs that make the crossword puzzles for you?" After intensive hours of work I came to understand the importance of learning about a specific program that will make a lot of other things I need to do much easier. Learning through experience is the best way of learning, and with this assignment I became a very active learner. My mind was working on many different ideas at the same time like specific vocabulary from a subject area, questions and answers, math reasoning to determine the exact number of squares needed, and visual perception and orientation, and then, finally, exploring Excel and learning how it worked. Did I learn? Yes!
That is why I definitely think that this type of project will help students to master Excel and, additionally, specific vocabulary words. Crossword puzzles will encourage students to:

Acquire new vocabular
Recognize similar words and phrases
Improve spelling
Make inferences
Evaluate choices
Draw conclusions

Learning how software works by creating something with it is better than learning the software separately. We can teach our students how to search animated images, download them, and save them and, instead of just teaching them how to copy into power point, let them create a cartoon that uses those images to tell the story. Another way to teach them a new program would be to have them create a slide show of their favorite topic and then post it in "slideshare" so other students, and even family, can see their child's work. That way the students are learning more than one function of the programs and are applying their understanding about a specific subject area.

This assignment was a challenge and the creation of the questions and answers used in the crossword puzzle came out much more complex than I intended. When I was creating the puzzle my father-in-law could not help but offer his help because he is a fan of crossword puzzles. This ended up as a fun family activity because everybody had questions and answers to offer. I taught my father the functions of Excel and he taught me new vocabulary and historical events. The same thing can happen with our students where young children become more expert with technology and can convey this knowledge to an older generation. Activities like this allow families to come together and the children benefit tremendously.
Next time I would like to create a puzzle for smaller children by inserting images as clues.