ADM 316 - Workshop 2 Postscript

Here are the PowerPoint slides from last night:

Here are a couple of notes that I wanted to mention from the other night’s session:

• I know that there is a spectrum of experience in Excel among the class. Many of you worked ahead in the book to complete the assignment before we were done with the demonstration on the screen. That is fine with me if you want to work ahead. However, in the interest of teaching those who are not quite so experienced yet, please try to keep the amount of excess chatter down to a minimum. I don’t mind if you’re online or doing something else while you’re waiting for the rest of us to catch up. However, the size and space in the conference room that the hotel has given us is not really conducive to a lot of extra noise, and it can be a bit distracting for everyone in the class.
• If you see your neighbor is having trouble, then you might want to give them a hand and help them out if you can. I’ve seen many of you doing this so far, of which I am grateful, especially when I might be across the room helping others. I try to make the circuit as quickly as possible, but I think it is an excellent use of your skills to use the opportunity to help a classmate along.
• This also goes out to those who are more experienced in class. If you see an opportunity to do something easier or faster than the way we are doing it, please make sure you speak up and mention it. We had a really good interjection the other night about the Format Painter, which likely shaved a few minutes off of class and allowed us to talk about something that most everyone will find more helpful than going in and out of menus. In Excel, there generally seems to be 3 or 4 ways of doing something, so I will generally default to the menu options, as you can really learn about what Excel can do by just looking at the selections available. However, it is often easier to get from Point A to Point B with a button or a right-click.
• For those of you still having difficulty with the Excel portion of the course, I would again encourage you to do the step-by-step practice exercises in your textbook. There are also sample problems listed on the Grauer and Barber web site, as well as the starter files if you don’t happen to have your laptop with you.

As I mentioned in class, this week’s workshop has to do with databases and computer security, which is a favorite topic of mine. Here’s a link to a story regarding the ten largest data breaches of the decade, which have allowed 200 million distinct accounts to be compromised. I don’t know if your identity has been stolen or someone you know has had this happen to them, but if those accounts belonged to 200 million distinct people, that’s roughly 2/3 the population of the United States becoming a possible target for identity theft.