I was excited to see that this week in class we would be completing a hands-on activity utilizing Microsoft Excel. While I find our weekly quizzes and reflections constructive, I am definitely more of a project/activity person. After reading this week’s chapter and exploring the resources in the course module, I opened the instructions for the Excel activity. For this assignment we were required to edit and add to a pre-created sample grade spreadsheet. This assignment was not too overwhelming for me, but a few of the later steps definitely required some online research to complete successfully.
The steps encompassing text/cell formatting and insertion of columns were “easy, peasy, lemon squeezy” (as my oh-so-goofy 2nd graders would say). Entering the Excel formulas for the Homework and Test averages was a bit more challenging, but I learned that Excel has a handy Formulas tab under which the formulas are organized by type and purpose. Once I discovered where these formula shortcuts were located, these steps went pretty smoothly. This was much easier than spending twenty minutes trying to guess what the formula should be, as I used to do (and by used to do, I mean as of a week ago…).
I learned how to perform two completely new tasks in Excel through this assignment: sorting data according to values and linking four workbooks dynamically. Sorting the data seemed easy enough, but I honestly had just never attempted it in Excel before. A simple Google search of how to sort data in Microsoft Excel 2007 gave me just the guidance I was looking for. Once again, there was a convenient Data tab under which the option to Sort was suitably located. Now, to the final step of the assignment: dynamic linking of spreadsheet data. Easy peasy lemon squeezy? Not so much this time. I spent quite a while looking through the program before I did yet another Google search. On top of the Microsoft tutorial, I found many helpful how-to posts by general users, and a step-by-step YouTube video. I was glad to know I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t mastered that skill yet! And people say Excel is old and outdated… hmph. I’ll bet they (A) never taught and (B) never tried to dynamically link workbooks together.
I really enjoyed this activity, and I am looking forward to more hands-on activities in the future. I could definitely use some improvement of my Excel skills, especially after my newfound discovery of the resources available to manipulate and organize the inputted data. My school district requires all teachers to use an online gradebook called ProgressBook. Not only does ProgressBook hold student grades, but teachers also input lesson plans, post assignments and homework, and do Progress Reports and Report Cards through this portal. I currently use Excel to track student homework completion, but after this assignment I feel like Excel allows the user to do so much more with the data than the online grade book does, and it is definitely more user friendly. I am currently organizing student reading data and response to interventions, and I think Excel and I will be great friends in this process :).
Alyssa
I also found the Excel activity to be fairly simple. I liked your use of easy-peasy. Most of it was not too bad. I also had to look some things up when it came to the averaging of the test scores and how to dynamically move the names almost had me boggled.
ReplyDeleteLike you I use a grading system provided by my school district which performs almost all of the important daily tasks that an educator needs to perform (attendance, gradebook, etc.) But I never thought about using Excel to keep track of student homework. I think I'm going to try that. Thanks for the idea!