Microsoft Excel in the Classroom

Before last summer, I had no idea what Excel even was. I started playing with it as a part of my job and when I started working for Dr. Burch again this fall, I became very familiar with the program. and I have experienced first-hand the benefits of using this program for academic purposes. When I think of hours typing numbers in the computer and averaging over and over again, I am so happy that I can now do the same amount of work in less than half the time it used to take.
Excel programs are very beneficial in the classroom for the teacher (saving time) and the students (helping them enjoy numbers and learning exciting technology skills).
Excel is very helpful for the teacher in keeping track of any type of grading system and anything that needs averaging. One idea that I thought would be very helpful is to have the students keep track of their reading on an Excel Worksheet. The students can keep track of the book title, author, number of pages, AR level, and AR test results. Allowing the student to accomplish the task, gives them the opportunity to observe their growing excellence and a sense of achievement. Because the students are keeping track of their books, they can look back at all they have read as a reading log and the teacher can look at the worksheet and assess the students improvement. http://www.microsoft.com/education/read.mspx
Another idea I would like to incorporate into my classroom someday is using Excel to teach my students graphs and how graphs are used in the real world. Because information put into a data spreadsheet can very easily be turned into a graph (and multiple variations of graphs), the students can read their data on the worksheet then correlate that information with what they read on the graph. This type of data compilation is excellent for recording real time and real life data in the classroom. And an asset for students in the 21st century classroom to learn.
http://www.microsoft.com/education/read.mspx