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Excel In the Classroom
What's
the hype?
Seen by many as the industry standard for data analysis, including graphing
and producing tables, Microsoft's Excel is a wonderful application that
can be used to achieve student learning outcomes. As educators start to
understand the usefulness of such applications, we predict that a great
number of staff will not only ask for training and support on these types
of applications, but demand it.
The transparent, yet under lying fact is that mathematicians are begging
for us to realize that simple data collection is not a viable life skill
without the ability to analyze the data. Applications like Excel's ability
to help you quickly organize and create graphical representations of data
for easier analysis is becoming a dominate force not only in the educational
arena, but in the corporate world.
It's no wonder why many educators from all levels are fast learning that
applications like Excel not only need to be introduced in a students'
K-12 program, but it need to be introduced early and revisited often to
reinforce the skills associated with such applications. Yet, many educators
seem to be intimated by the level of understanding and competence required
to effectively use applications like Excel in their teaching. In fact,
many of our staff developers are often told by the educators who they
work with, "If I don't understand it, do you think that my students will?"
While this statement is no doubt true, we encourage teachers to think
of using technology, in this case applications like Excel, as they would
any other tool in teaching. As with anything newly learned, it takes time
to develop a new skill.
For the purpose of this tutorial, we'll look at the pros and cons of
using Microsoft Excel as an application with your students. We'll also
examine some methods for strengthening your Excel skills. We chose Microsoft
Excel because it is the most widely known and probably the most commonly
used application.
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