INTERNET RESOURCE
The web resource that I evaluated was http://www.usd.edu/trio/tut/excel. This is a tutorial site designed to help students become familiar with Microsoft Excel or similar spreadsheet software. This site does an excellent job of describing the basic uses of a spreadsheet. After students have an understanding of what spreadsheets can be used for, they are instructed on the basic components that make up a spreadsheet. The site clearly explains the definitions of rows, columns, cells, and types of data. It then moves forward to describing how to enter mathematical formulas and more complex functions.
The one main problem that I noticed with this software was the sequencing of explaining functions. For some strange reason, the person who designed this site decided to introduce the PMT function first. This function is a more complicated function, and the logical text can be difficult for students to understand. If I were designing this site, I would definitely start with a more simple function like the SUM function. The site also was missing some of the shortcut ways to perform tasks. It never mentioned that by right clicking, you would find many options that may help you work your way through any problems that you might encounter. Other than those few problems, everything was phenomenal. When a student completes the tutorial, they are prompted to take a ten-question quiz. The questions were so well written that, I decided I would probably use them in my class sometime for a quiz. I strongly believe that students, who complete this tutorial, will have a strong grasp of the basics of Excel. One final note is that I do believe students must have some very basic prior knowledge of how to use a computer. However, if they are able to look up this website and work through the tutorial, they will probably have the basic knowledge that they need to perform the most simple tasks in Excel, like opening and saving the program.