An Interview with Kelsey of Atom Learning

The second piece in our blog series ‘An Interview with …’ asks Kelsey of Atom Learning about spreadsheets, their features and how to become confident in using them

Working with data and technology can be difficult and overwhelming for a lot of people. So, we at Taught By Humans are running a series of interviews with professionals to help demystify these topics for you. How are data and technology useful and/or significant within different roles? How do people learn about data and technology and their applications? How can we keep our knowledge of data and technology up to date? Our interviewees will be helping us to answer these questions and more.

Our second interviewee is Kelsey Botne: Senior Curriculum Manager at Atom Learning, an online adaptive teaching and learning platform for children aged 7 to 13. We spoke to Kelsey about her experience of working with spreadsheets specifically, and she shared with us insight into how she makes use of them in her role, her route to learning to use them, and her advice for those wanting to learn.

The Interview

Can you give us a background of who you are and what you do?

I’m Kelsey, and I work in tech. I have a lot of different roles, but mostly I work in implementation, learning design and curriculum design.

So how in your current role are spreadsheets used?

To track most things. We use a project management tool called Asana, and we use a couple of other things. But most of our day-to-day work and progress is tracked through spreadsheets. We are starting, as a company, to use Tableau also. We’re trying to look at what we want to track so we can get things in Tableau for visualisation. But still, it’s very early days, so we’re just sort of figuring out what we’re doing.

How have spreadsheets been used in previous roles that you’ve had?

For the same kind of thing: tracking purposes. In the last role I was in, we had 100+ people who were tracking their own individual work. However, we also used spreadsheets to track as a project entirely. So we were using probably at least three massive spreadsheets to track everything. All of the information was there, but this method made it very unwieldy and extremely difficult to do anything, which is when I started investigating what I could do to make things easier by using spreadsheets.

In what way(s) have you found spreadsheets to be useful tools?

I think that spreadsheets are super useful if you know what you’re doing with them. There are a lot of different things you can do, but ultimately you do have to know what you’re doing with them, at least a little bit. And for those of us who are not in data-based roles, we don’t really know what you can do, or how you would do those things. So I think it’s been helpful to work with people who are much more knowledgeable. It has helped me to better understand what I can do with spreadsheets in my role, how they can benefit me, and what I can learn how to do to make my day-to-day life easier.

How did you go about developing your knowledge of data in spreadsheets?

Initially I didn’t really know what I was doing at all when it came to spreadsheets. But when I was in a role where I had to use spreadsheets all day, every day, I had to learn. And I definitely asked a lot of questions. But once I got the basics down, I had a better understanding of the process of finding out how to do something. So now I know what to search for to find the right information about a feature I want to know more about, even if I don’t yet know how to do it. And I think being able to cross that barrier, just made a whole range of features available to me. Ultimately, just knowing what to look for made a big difference.

And did you find this to be an effective way of learning?

Absolutely. I definitely had a lot of help with learning the basics of spreadsheets. But once you understand those basics and foundational things that you need to use all the time, it becomes much easier to delve into more intermediate or advanced areas of Excel or Sheets because you understand what is possible. So even if you’re not sure if something can work, you at least can go figure it out yourself.

Would you recommend that people go about learning the way that you did?

I think if you have someone to help you, as I did, at least initially, this definitely makes it a lot easier. But many of the things you can learn, either in short courses or videos online, I think you can self-learn as well. It’s just understanding what you have access to. It also depends how simple some of these things are. There are really useful features of spreadsheets that you can learn in five or ten minutes, by whatever means it might be. And knowing those just makes everything a lot easier for you and your role.

You’ve given insight into how you first learned about spreadsheets. How do you ensure that your knowledge of them is kept up to date?

It’s hard. I’m no expert by any means. But I think it’s best to try to find resources that can help. There are a lot of resources that exist, so sometimes it can feel really overwhelming, especially if you’re trying to learn something that’s far more advanced than what you know how to do. So my advice would be try to find resources that are designed for the level that you are, or that follow a step-by-step process. For me, I try to learn as much as I can, as I’m doing it in my job or when I need to use a certain feature. If I am unsure about whether it’s possible, I can either ask somebody or I can go searching, seeing what resources I can find. I look to see whether there’s a resource that will allow me to learn that thing quickly, such as a video or help-sheet or something like that. But it’s hard, because there’s a lot and not all of it is useful.

You work in education; has that changed the way you understand how it’s best to learn?

Definitely. In the roles that I have had, what I have needed to know is how people learn. That much I know. I think it’s easier for me, then, to teach myself, because I understand generally how to learn. But at the same time, you also have to know: what are the learning objectives? What are the things that you need to learn? In my job, for example, when I do a learning design, I always have these things in mind. So, I think my background gives me an advantage, but at the same time, I don’t know everything that’s out there. I do my best to find teaching resources that at least outline the things I need to know, and then I use those to put together my own learning pathway.

A bit about Excel and Sheets, specifically. What are some of their features that you think are useful that can be overlooked, or that fewer people might know about?

That’s a great question. I think it depends how advanced you want to go. I just learned how to do pivot tables, which you can do so much with. I don’t think these are overlooked by any means, but I do think that they are so accessible. People who don’t work with data all the time often don’t realise how accessible they are. I think that there’s a barrier for people who don’t work with data on a day-to-day basis. It feels scary for them, so they just leave it alone. I think, then, that it’s often not the things that are overlooked, but the understanding that many features are perfectly possible to learn without being an expert. That is the piece that I believe is overlooked by people who feel like learning spreadsheets is just a really scary process. They feel that they need someone who’s an expert to come and do things for them. But there are actually tons of things that you can do yourself that are pretty easy. You can learn them in about five minutes. And I don’t think a lot of people realise that. They just don’t know that those features are accessible for them.

Are there any advantages that you think Excel or Sheets have over the other?

Oh, I prefer Sheets, definitely. It’s so much more collaborative. I have also found that it’s easier to learn. For people I know who are not data experts, they tend to be more comfortable with Sheets. It is possible for you to do a lot of the same things through both platforms, but for me, I think Sheets is definitely preferable due to it being so much more collaborative. For my job, this is so important. Especially when I’m working with the people that are the data experts, it’s much easier for me to share things with them through Sheets, and simpler for them to help me if I need them to.

I think we’re getting to the end, but is there any further advice you’d like to give to the community of people that are just beginning to learn about data, tech or spreadsheets?

I think the most important thing to remember is that it’s not that scary. Like I said, there’s so many things that you can do that you don’t realise are really easy and accessible. You can do a lot with spreadsheets, and you can do a lot with the data that you have, once you get into it and once you’ve grasped the basics. Realising that for myself made me understand that, actually, I can do some of the more complicated features of spreadsheets with a bit of study. And it’s not that hard. And it’s not that scary. The best thing to do is to just give it a go, then to try to get the basics under your belt. Doing that opens up such a big world of things that you can do. You might find that this makes you really excited about going to the next step and learning the things that are more complex.

Thank you so much, Kelsey, for speaking to me today. It’s been really great to meet you.

Absolutely. No problem!

Takeaways

So, what can we learn from this interview?

Takeaway #1: Learning the basics is the hardest part of working with spreadsheets. Having external support is most beneficial at this stage of the learning process, and although not necessary, is useful to streamline the this process. If you’re lucky, you could have support through your role as Kelsey did. Otherwise, perhaps online guides or introductory courses could be valuable.

Takeaway #2: There are many features of spreadsheets that are accessible to roles and professionals outside of tech, and there are more of these than most people realise. It just takes breaking down the barrier of assuming that things aren’t possible and giving them a go!

Takeaway #3: Making yourself learning objectives when trying to teach yourself a new skill is incredibly helpful. Knowing what each skill is useful for will make choosing your route there so much easier and your learning process so much more effective.

Thanks to Kelsey for sharing such valuable advice and insight into spreadsheets, and how they can be used, tackled and learned. If this interview with Kelsey has been useful for you, stay tuned as there are more to come! Next up, we will be branching out into some new themes around data and technology…