This week in our graduate course on the fundamentals of technology for educators we have been examining various software applications and productivity tools that can be very useful in the classroom. One of these specific tools is Microsoft Excel, and as we found in our Module 5 activity this week, it can be easily used as an online grade book. In this post, I will share my reflections on my individual experience as I completed the activity and produced a customized Excel grade book.
First, our professor gave our class a spreadsheet containing data such as student first and last names, and also corresponding scores for their various homework assignments and tests. We were then given a sheet of tasks to perform on this spreadsheet and we were allowed to use any program we wanted to open and modify the document as long as our final version was an Excel file. We were also allowed to consult any tutorials or other resources we had to complete the tasks that comprised our activity.
The list of tasks we were given consisted of eight required tasks along with a ninth one that was worth two extra credit percentage points if completed successfully. The first two tasks were fairly easy in that we were first asked to format the contents of each column of scores in a different color, and then we were asked to add a new column in between two existing columns. I didn’t find the next three tasks on the list overly difficult either, and that was due to the fact that I was able to utilize the MS Excel “insert function” feature to complete them. It helped me create one column that would display each student’s homework average, and then I used it to create another column that would display each of their test averages. The final column I created using the feature was a column that would display each student’s final grade, based on the average of all their grades in the grade book. That covers the first five tasks on the list of nine, and now I will reflect on the final four. The last three required tasks proved to require a little more thought on my part, but they were relatively easy to complete. Number six required me to sort the students based on their final grades. I chose to sort them from least to greatest and I determined that there were three out thirty who were “in danger” of earning a “D” or less based on the grading scale we were given. The next task was very simple because it only required me to “boldface” the contents in the corresponding rows for the three “in danger” students. The final required task was the only one I had to really think about. After I consulted the built-in online “Help” section of Excel, I was able to make the student names appearing on the first worksheet in the spreadsheet dynamically appear on the other three worksheets. This means that when a change is made to a name on one worksheet, it automatically appears on the other three.
As I stated, the last task on the list we were given was for extra credit and we could earn two extra credit percentage points if we completed it successfully. The task was to determine if completing the homework assignment could have a positive effect on a student’s subsequent test score. I can’t go into much more detail because it would give away my answer that I submitted to our professor, and it must be sequestered at this time in order for me to earn any extra credit. Needless to say, this was the most challenging task we were given, but I was able to rely on Google to find a solution. It was again another built-in Excel function to the rescue and I’m hopeful to earn the extra credit for my solution.
The MS Excel activity we completed for Module 5 of our course was a good exercise in how productivity tools can be effectively used in the classroom. In this instance it was used to create a class grade book and it demonstrated how easy it is to use Excel to create and maintain these types of documents that are essential to today’s teachers. Even though I found the activity fairly easy to complete, these types of productivity tools are usually user-friendly, and they have built-in “Help” sections if needed. In addition, I found that when I wanted to complete the extra credit task, it was easy to find a solution by searching for it with Google.
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