An electronic spreadsheet allows you to “organize, input, edit, and chart data and produce accurate professional reports for any administrative task that deals extensively with numbers”. In an educational setting, one prime advantage is the ability to track and average grades. Most spreadsheets also have built-in graphing capabilities that can turn “numeric data into colorful, three-dimensional charts”. Electronic spreadsheets "provide students with a method for tracking and analyzing data and creating charts from it" and "support student research such as tracking stock market data".
With an electronic spreadsheet, as long as the data entered is accurate, the results are always accurate as well; also, it is much simpler to change just one number in an electronic spreadsheet and get brand new results than it is to be forced to manually change a number and then be forced to redo all of the calculations. The “what-if analysis” capability of an electronic spreadsheet may prove useful to many classroom teachers; when entering grades into a spreadsheet, a teacher can check to see what a student’s average would be if he or she scored 100% on the next test by entering it into a cell on the spreadsheet. Besides tracking grades, spreadsheets can also be used to chart data in a scientific experiment. Growth and change over a period of time can easily be charted this way.
Excel is probably the one component of Microsoft Office that I’ve struggled with the most in all of my years spent computing; while I can follow directions to make it do whatever it is I want it to do (which is pretty much what I spent this past summer doing, while struggling to learn SPSS), I’ve never actually fully comprehended what, exactly, is going on. Because of this, I found it particularly ironic that this topic is the one I was assigned to read and understand in a bit more depth this week.
I can certainly see how spreadsheet software could effectively be used for things like charting student progress when a student is struggling in a class, or seeing perhaps where and when the teacher may need to reevaluate her teaching methods for a particular topic in class. I am perhaps fortunate in that my school uses another software package that performs much of the grading advantages spreadsheet software offers, since actually using spreadsheet software is such a struggle for me. However, since many school districts may not have access to these packages, it is very advantageous to have a more basic program that many people have on their home computers that is capable of so much.
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The advent of the spread sheet has made the life of the accountant bearable. It also has curtailed mistakes in averaging grades for teachers. Spreadsheets can be used to track family budgets, scores for sports teams, even bowling. Like you said earlier, it is software that can be used in daily siturations.
Some of the more sophisticated techniques of spreadsheets are the ability to create graphs. Spreadsheets can also answer logic questions and sort information for easier viewing. The software can make a toiling accounting task and perform it in a few simple key strokes.
Indeed Excel and other electronic spreadsheets are a useful tool when no other software package is available. Its ability to compute grades, progress reports, and "what-if analysis" is advantageous if one does have the time to make such charts. To me, this is the only drawback to electronic spreadsheets. They do require the data to be input and the "functions" to be managed by the user. When initially learning this process, it takes quite some time to master these skills. I am fortunate that my district does, in fact, posses software that computes grades, averages, and progress with only the user inputting the necessary data of grades earned by the students.
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