Agricultural and Extension Education
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AEE 526 - Information Technologies in Agricultural and Extension Education |
Module 10:  |
Advanced Excel |
Introduction: |
Excel is one of the most
powerful and useful computer programs in the Microsoft Office Suite.
However, the average
person only uses about 1% of its features. One could consider Excel
to
be like a toolbox that contains over 300 tools. When facing a specific
task
one has to know which tool to use The purpose of this
module is to start you on the path of being a power Excel user. We will
start with a review of the basics then move into some tools you may
have never used. And we are only scratching the surface. I could easily
construct a semester course on Excel. This is
really a great program for handling numbers and data. Most of the
materials in this module refer to Excel 2003 but Excel 2007 is
basically the same but you may have to hunt to find the right tab to
access some of the functions.
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Learning
Objectives:  |
 Identify the components of an Excel
spreadsheet Write
basic Excel
formulas Properly
format a cell in an Excel spreadsheet Differentiate
between a relative and absolute cell reference Use the
sum and average functions Sort
date Use the fill function in
Excel Protect a worksheet Convert text to column Use the Countif and If
functions Use the formula
auditing tool in Excel Create
and use lookup tables Use the Today function
in Excel Use the Index feature Use the SumIf function Divide the screen
Create a pie chart Create a bar chart Create a line chart Create a column chart |
| Instructional Activities:  |
View a PowerPoint
presentation used in class: http://www.ncsu.edu/cals/agexed/aee526/excel.ppt I have created two "walk through" excel tutorials. Open each
one up and do what it tells you to do. Then click on the tab at the
bottom of each workbook (that is what an Excel file is called) to
advance to the next learning activity. If you skip over this or don't
pay much attention, you will probably flounder greatly in trying to do
the assignment for this module. Microsoft has several excellent tutorials on how to use
Excel. Most of
these are narrated with audio. If you don't know how to use Excel, you
should
explore some of these
lessons. Brad James at the University of South Dakota also has a basic Excel tutorial. if
you are not familiar with Excel. The http://www.bus.ucf.edu/skills/pages/excel/index.htm
web site has animated graphics to illustrate how to perform certain
tasks in Excel. Another site that has a fairly
comprehensive set of free Excel lessons can be found at http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/free-training/basic-index.htm. Go to
the Microsoft
site and complete the lesson on how to create a chart. http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RC011055061033 Go
to http://www.internet4classrooms.com/excel_create_chart.htm
and study how to create a chart in Excel. |
Lagniappe:  |
In case you ever get mad while using Excel, go to http://j-walk.com/ss/jokes/warp/warp.htm to relieve your frustrations. |
Assignments:  |
Open up the Excel_Exercise.xls and follow the
directions toward the bottom of each page. Directions as to how to save
this exercise are found inside the spreadsheet.
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