Exporting a 2 week timetable

As a fully paid up convert to all things google, and as someone who likes electronic solutions (preferably cloud based and synced across platforms and devices) my timetable has been annoying me for some time. 

What I've wanted is a quick way to get a 2 week timetable out of Sims and into either google (my choice) or outlook (what some people would prefer). A quick google will suggest this is not trivial, so I'm sharing here my own work around.

To be warned, it feels a little like this.

You haven't asked how, but I'm going to tell you anyway.  (I know there are people at school who will want to know).

1.  Type your timetable into excel.  You need certain column headings, but because I'm nice like that I'm just going to share my spreadsheet with you (Here - you'll need to download it and edit).  I've only typed in one fortnights worth of TT, the rest is called by an =C3 type cell.
The "Day" column is numbered 1 (for Monday of Week A) through to 10 (Friday week B).
The Start date column is then a vlookup.

2.  Copy all but the first column and then "paste Special - Values" into a new spreadsheet.  You may want to format the columns for date and time so that they look like dates and times.  Save this as a CSV file.

3.  Import into either Google Calendars, or into Outlook.


I've only done term 1 so far.  This is as my timetable may change early on (I blame the timetabler (me)).  To get term 2 in after half term, all I think I need to do is change the date attached to the value 1 on sheet 4, and re-copy / paste.


Feel free to tell me how much like nonsense all of the above is, and what the better way is....

Most important topic in maths?

What is the most important topic in maths.  Many, including parents, and (more worryingly government) would have you believe it is 'basic numeracy', which tends to mean 'times tables'.  I agree that a basic awareness of magnitude and the ability to add siubtract or do multiplaications in your head is important, I really don't think that it is the most important thing that maths teachers should be doing with classes.

This is not my idea, by the way, I heard it discussed (briefly) on Radio 4's rather excellent "The Infinite Monkey Cage", about a year ago, but the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced its right.

What we should do more of is probability.  Not just the stuff we do already - words, probability lines, fractions / decimals (do any maths teachers use percentages for probability, and if not, should we if the real world do?).  Not just Venn diagrams and tree diagrams, but actual probability and risk assessment.

Don't panic.  This is not risk assessment from a H and S form point of view, but from a maths point of view!


Why?


Well, every decision we make is based on probabilities and expectations.  Should I buy a lottery ticket? What car finance deal should I go for?  What stocks and shares should I buy?

Everyone needs to be able to properly weigh up the pros and cons of any situation.  We need to teach the appropriate skills to do that. Students need to be able to set up appropriate models (modelling may be the second most important thing we teach!), and interogate those models.  We then need to use our understanding of probabilities (using prior information) to make the 'best' decision.

There's a great example of this earlier on my blog - have a look at http://chrismaths.blogspot.com/2010/05/real-functional-maths.html to see why it's important.

Any other thoughts??