Morton Mayhem

I apologize once again for being away today (Wednesday, Nov. 30th)…just can’t seem to get these tingles out of my feet…so I am seeing a neurologist in Trail. No diagnosis yet…to be continued…

Today I hope you are working away on your excel projects, minus the time spent gazing and glazing over the hockey stats wondering why Mortimizer is at the top and when Marked Men will seize the day.

Today you should be near completion of your first excel project, which has been an independent undertaking. On Friday there will be dancers at our school so no computer class!!! I know, it is atrocious. But, that does mean that you may hand in your excel project on MONDAY, hurray! You will be handing it in with one page for the word document and one page with the table and graphs that you have made. Go to my Marking Scheme page if you forget all the criteria.

If you have finished you could:
A. help another student with the ins and outs of excel
B. begin working on your term project
C. burn your powerpoint presentation onto a cd for your portfolio
D. begin the excel project that is different for each grade level…my substitute will have each level in the folder I left for him.

Tick tock.

So you have completed all the tutorials and have begun your individual excel project…great…now you have to make sure you have all the criteria met:

In a word document:
1. A word document that explains the purpose of your excel project.
2. The sites, peoples, polls, books, or other sources of information that you used.
3. Your analysis or discussion of the results and graphs that you have made.
4. A conclusion explaining why you chose a certain table or graph over another, what the graphs or charts mean to you and what they may mean to a potential audience, and finally what changes you might make to your excel project if it was redone.
(notice the words in bold: these should be your headings, and your word document should have some inserted pictures or clip art that reflect the purpose of your excel project)

In an excel spreadsheet/table/graph
5. At least one table with more than 5 rows and 5 columns.
6. The table’s headings should be shaded and include units of some sort.
7. At least one graph with a legend.
(note that higher marks will be awarded according to the difficulty of your project)

Another three day weekend…and only three weeks left till X-mas break…wow time flies when you are having fun. This week we will finish the excel projects, they should be ready to hand in on Friday. There is the possibility of a guest speaker/computer wizard coming in this week or next week (I will keep you posted). Once you have handed in your own personalized excel project I am going to give you a specific level 1, 2, or 3 to see that you are indeed excelling in Excel.

I was happy with Friday’s class, everyone was busy working on their projects!!! Awesome really, you made my weekend (sad truth of a teacher’s existence).

Some of you may have been a little upset by your computer mark being on the low side but you now know my style of testing and my expectations. I always put the criteria on the blog under Marking Scheme so check there for every project assigned (CHECK IT TODAY). Generally everyone’s grade will go up this new term, especially because no one is going to allow themselves to bomb the quizzes from the tutorial lessons, right?

Kickin’.

Why the thanks? Who’s it to? There are some of you that are working pretty hard going through the plethora of excel tutorials that I assigned. I am pleased with the effort you are putting in. I have handed out the assignment so some people have simply stopped doing the tutorials…this will not be beneficial to you in the long run, why? Because after this initial project I have given you, I will assess where I think you are at in terms of excel, then I will assign you another excel project that is different for each grade. The grades 10’s will get level 1 and the grades 12’s level 3.

Point being? Keep going through the tutorials to be experts with excel.

Portfolio cd burning? Grade 10’s and 11’s this is an easy way for you to complete part of your grade requirements so simply ask for my help…

Over and not totally out.

You still have a lot of work to do…many people are starting to slack off…perhaps I am being a little too slack and need to get on your case more?? You need to finish the Excel Tutorial lessons (just click on link here on the blog on the right).

The last lesson you should complete is:
Section Nine - Cell Referencing, Named ranges, Pivot Tables
Lesson 6. Extending the Pivot Table

Less messing around and more working please.

Tanks.