Crossword puzzle fun

Plants Crossword Puzzle: Puzzlemaker

This project shows how teachers can incorporate the use of technology with curriculum. I think this project would help students to learn how to use Excel and reinforce content vocabulary in a unique way. I do think students could spend a great deal of time formatting and designing a puzzle on Excel, which takes away the focus of reviewing vocabulary, but it teaches them the software. It depends on a teachers focus. For a quick vocabulary review I think Puzzlemaker is more valuable because student's can easily make the crossword puzzle, but it does not allow for any creativity or learning a valuable software. Puzzlemaker was very quick and easy to use, but there were limitations to the crossword design because I am not a member and it was difficult to share. I would only suggest this application if you were solely printing out the crossword puzzle for a paper and pencil task. Excel can also be used to organize data, perform math formulas, create graphs and much more. One of my favorite activities I do with my students is have them record the number of different color M & Ms in a package and create a bar graph using Excel.