Spreadsheets!

I use spreadsheets a lot.  Probably too much.  I record daily behavioral data on my students, pre- and post-test scores for every unit, MAP and WKCE scores, and have even tried keeping data on how they do on daily warm-ups to identify areas that need extra review.  I find it extremely useful, as the numbers often show trends or issues that I wouldn't have seen on my own.  This allows me to make simple adjustments to solve these problems.

I used spreadsheets on a senior graduation project when I taught high school.  Students had to simulate their first year out of high school and set a budget.  Excel was handy for this, since it was easy to add another line on the budget and have everything automatically adjust.  Since I moved to teaching middle school, I haven't used spreadsheets directly with the students.  I could imagine some ways to incorporate it into my classroom.  Currently we do a project where students create an ad campaign for an imaginary country.  They could be given an advertising budget, then choose ad methods based on cost and how many each method would reach.  Also, we have a fantasy league for Tom Sawyer.  Students "draft" characters at the beginning of the book, then get points based on certain actions (5 points for hiding, 4 points for cleverly getting out of trouble, etc.).  I use a spreadsheet to keep track of their points, but this is something that I could hand off to them in the future.

As we move forward with RtI, and efficient data collection and analysis becomes a larger part of a teacher's job, knowing how to use a spreadsheet will be more and more important.  It's been interesting as I talk to teachers in other districts that some pay quite a bit for a program to analyze data (SWIS), while other districts are doing it for free with Excel.