Using Excel in the Classroom

I have never been a big fan of Excel and that was probably because I was never trained on how to use it. I was never taught all the things that Excel can do and make easier. With my new job, I can constantly using Excel to manage my department budget, create attendence sheets, run report numbers, etc. As I am using it more and more, I am begining to appreciate all the neat things it can do and it definitely makes things easier. But it took me awhile to get used to using Excel and my boss had to show we a lot about it and what it can do for me. I have had mini training lessons in certain parts of Excel. Now that I use it, I am getting more comfortable with it.
There are many ways that Excel can be used in the classroom. For example, it can be used to log the weather. Every morning, the students can record the weather and temperature and look for patterns throughout the year (NETS-S 1 D). It can also be used for daily attendence and lunch counts (NETS-S 3 D). The students can take turns being in charge of using Excel to add up the lunch count numbers for each student. Teachers can use Excel for grading and averaging. Teachers can also use Excel to create graphic organizers such as a KWL chart or Venn diagram, as well as rubrics (NETS-S 3 B). Excel can be extremely helpful with mathematics lesson when teaching probability, you can use the dice and do the probability act with Excel. It can be a visual aid in learning fractions and proportions. It can be very useful in teaching money management and balancing a checkbook (NETS-S 4 C). It can be used with question of the day and the class has to answer a question, such as "what is your favorite pet?" and there is a place to put a tally mark on the board and then the morning learner will end the number of tally marks into Excel and see what the class's most popular favorite pet is. It can serve as a great getting to know the class activity (NETS-S 6 D).
Excel can be used in each and every classroom in all subjects. Teachers just need to be willing to learn how to navigate Excel and cannot be afraid to use it. I know before I had a job where I needed to use it, I had no interest in using Excel, I thought that word could do everything for me. I am now realizing that if I would have used Excel earlier, it could have saved me a lot of time and energy on certain projects.