Abstract:

Digital technologies play an increasing role in our life, so it is necessary to direct the educational process more and more towards the development of digital literacy of pupils. As great attention is paid to MS Excel at primary and secondary schools, it is useful to find new ways to motivate pupils to use this software.

Since various board games are played by milliards of people worldwide, it is natural to create a link between board games and MS Excel. We note that board games can significantly develope combinatorial skills.

The paper is focused on chess because it is one of the oldest and most famous game. Among other things, the most popular legend of chess history is analysed. Using MS Excel, we will show how this legend can be modified to obtain various interesting results.

We carried out research with the aid of a questionnaire to find out the difference between the preparedness of prospective elementary teachers and prospective lower secondary school teachers to motivate learning MS Excel with the help of chess. The chi-squared test of independence was used.

Keywords:

Digital technologies, chess, spreadsheet, motivation.