Performing Operations with Matrices on Spreadsheets

Although created mainly for other purposes, spreadsheets appear to be useful in mathematics education. For instance, Russell (1992) writes about spreadsheet activities in middle school mathematics in his book with the same title. In a Mathematics Teacher article, Hunt (1995) describes how he uses spreadsheets to teach students synthetic substitution, synthetic division, and Newton's method. Our experience shows that the same tool can be useful for performing matru operations and, further on, for introducing students to basic concepts of linear algebra. The interested reader can find additional examples of using spreadsheets in high school mathematics in Sjostrand's (1994) book, which deals with Excel spreadsheets.