Spreadsheet analysis and design
Communications of the ACM
What we know about spreadsheet errors
Journal of End User Computing - End User Development
Spreadsheets in science and engineering
Spreadsheets in science and engineering
Software maintenance and evolution: a roadmap
Proceedings of the Conference on The Future of Software Engineering
Principles for Information Visualization Spreadsheets
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
End-user software engineering with assertions in the spreadsheet paradigm
Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Software Engineering
Spreadsheet structure inspection using low level access and visualisation
AUIC '03 Proceedings of the Fourth Australasian user interface conference on User interfaces 2003 - Volume 18
Spreadsheet structure inspection using low level access and visualisation
AUIC '03 Proceedings of the Fourth Australasian user interface conference on User interfaces 2003 - Volume 18
Fluid Visualization of Spreadsheet Structures
VL '98 Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages
ICSM '01 Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM'01)
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Spreadsheets are part of the educational syllabus of instruction for secondary schools in Austria. They are mainly taught using applications, disregarding the fact that building spreadsheets is programming. But the programming nature of spreadsheets is undeniable. Data in cells is interconnected with a rather sophisticated formula language. Since the spreadsheet paradigm differs from common procedural or object-oriented paradigms that students may already be aware of, teaching spreadsheets is a complex task. Moreover, the data flow paradigm is a concept foreign to students or trainees. Lack of proper paradigms or computational models even complicates the situation. Is there a so called spreadsheet didactics – and if not, how should it look like? Should teachers train spreadsheet applications or insist on building models before implementing? How should they consider the spreadsheet programming viewpoint – without students scaring away and without loosing the spreadsheet's charm since they are said to be easy to use? This paper presents the main problem fields, presents a didactical model, and finally presents some rather pragmatic advice on how to teach spreadsheets.