Excel, Powerpoint, and Word

Higher Education is what has really stretched my abilities and skills in Microsoft Excel, Powerpoint, and Word.  Here are a few features that I use often and ideas that I would integrate into the classroom.

Excel:
I first became very acquainted with Excel when my husband and I were planning our wedding and setting future goals for our family.  He taught me how to create a tailored spreadsheet with the following features:

•  Days of the week and dates that repeat consecutively down the spreadsheet when you press on the corners and pull the cell down.
• Color-code different events or subjects.
• Use different sheets to separate different charts (i.e. honeymoon packages, venues, guest lists, contact information, menus, songs, Things to buy, prayer lists, etc.)
• Use shortcuts to copy (Ctrl C), cut (Ctrl V), paste (Ctrl P), undo (Ctrl X), strikethrough (Ctrl 5), bold, italicize, etc.  Most of these are also applicable on the internet, Word, PowerPoint, and other programs.
• Formulas to add up things like: # of guests (so you type in a family name in one column and the # of members in another which will add all of them up automatically in a "Total" cell at the bottom).  This makes counting so much easier.
• Right click on a cell to add a comment, such as "Call for contact info." or "send another invitation", etc.

Possible Assignment: Have students create a timeline of different inventions around the world during the scientific and industrial revolutions, using different rows and columns for who the inventors were, what they invented, when, where in the world, and why these inventions were revolutionary.

PowerPoint
I love PowerPoints because they are professional supplements to presentations.  However, they take perfectionists SO much time to create.  The effort is usually worth it in the end, because a well-crafted PowerPoint usually makes a smoother presentation.  The following features are ones I have used:

• Inserting personalized charts to illustrate a concept
• Adding sound effects.
• Using it on SMARTBoard to access videos on the internet.
• Creating backgrounds with relevant photos of the lesson.
• Timing each slide to help pace a presentation.  This is particularly helpful if I know that I have only 5 minutes to present a topic and absolutely have to be punctual.  Of course, practice is a must.

Possible Assignment: Present their findings with the class in a PowerPoint presentation, with different slides for each category from the Excel Inventions timeline (who, what, when, where, why).

Word
Microsoft Word seems like one of the self-explanatory programs that everyone should know how to use, but there are so many features that people look over because we think we already know all that we need.  I know I still have much to learn, but the following features have helped me thus far:

• The shortcuts mentioned in the Excel section
• Managing Sources and automatically inserting Bibliographies and citations
• Spell Check for grammatical errors
• Automatic bullet points and numbers for tidy notes
• Highlighting phrases and words - This is particularly useful for test study guides and review of research for papers.
• "Find": type in any word, number, phrase, etc. to find something specific that you're looking for in a document.  This may be a term from lecture notes or a particular quote you need.
• Page Layout: I like to change my margins to "Narrow" to save space and paper when appropriate.
• When making labels for wedding invitations for instance, the "Mailing" tab allows you to choose specific formats to simply type in the names and addresses to print out on stickers.  This is professional and saves time in the long-run.  It also helps keep track of who've you've already sent out invitations to when you save the document.  Then you can use the "find" feature to see if you've already created a label for a particular person/family.

Possible Assignment: Teach middle-schoolers to properly cite their primary, secondary, and tertiary documents while doing their research, using the MLA format under the "Manage Sources" feature.

I hope these features are helpful to you, as they have been for me.  The lists can undoubtedly go on and on.  I've found that the Microsoft websites are also incredibly resourceful in more shortcut tips, explanation of features, and terrific templates!  What a blessing such technologies are in our busy, busy lives!