Tech Skills: Spreadsheet # 6

Microsoft Excel is a program that I think should be used more in the classroom setting.  It is important for students to be able to learn how to use a spreadsheet.  The reason I suggest Microsoft Excel is because most of our kids are more familiar with the Microsoft Office software than any other set of software.  As a special educator, I am required, by law, to keep a daily record of all the interactions that I have with each of my students on a daily basis.  For this reason, Excel has become a very valuable tool for keeping track of how many minutes I spend with my students on a daily basis.  Even though it is possible to compute the totals on paper and pencil, or even on a table in Microsoft Word, I feel that using Excel is valuable because you can use the auto sum feature, or create other formulas to add up the total minutes with ease.

                I have been using the basic features of Excel for about 5 years now.  However, I have never created charts, graphs, or even used color in Excel.  To be honest, I never realized you could do so much more to your documents in Excel.  Last week I logged onto a website called Atomic Learning,  and listened to a tutorial on how to make your documents more professional in Excel.  I was astounded at how much I did not know about Excel.  Since that day I have been in the experimenting stages of using color in Excel.  If you are interested in a sample Excel document that I am working on then please click on the attachment that I have added to my blog.  

                Since I have never used Excel as a tool of instruction in the classroom, I decided to do some research on my own and find out how it is being used in the classroom.  I found out that there are many ways that you can introduce Excel into the classroom.  I also found out that you do not have to create this elaborate project for kids in which they use excel.  I think it should be small tasks that they are given at first so that they can feel comfortable and also enjoy their learning.  Maybe after you have had several sessions in Excel you can add a small project for the kids to work on.

                One example of a simple project students could do in excel would be to research five of their favorite singers and create a spreadsheet of their favorite singers CD or mp3 sales for the past five years.  They could then use the autosum feature to add up the CD or mp3 sales for the past five years to see who had sold more.  It would be something that they really enjoyed doing and it would teach them the basic functions of a spreadsheet.