Day+4


 * Day 4: The process of learning and using Microsoft Office as an effective tool **

From a teacher's perspective, MS Office (or Google docs, as the case may be) is an extremely useful classroom tool. Even if only for teacher use to improve his/her own teaching (i.e. maybe not for use in parent-teacher conferences!!), the Excel grade book is a great tool to know how to use. As I am now more familiar with the Google Documents version, I wonder if I could function just as well in Excel...

Additionally, I think that the uses for Power Point presentations that I mentioned in the last journal entry have real merit. I think that if students chose their own learning adventure, they could learn a lot of content information while maintaining a sense of choice. Are you aware of any commercial products that offer this kind of thing? If not, maybe we can create a "choose your own adventure" textbook and make a lot of money.

Finally, Word continues to be an integral part of school and learning. As is probably the case with most people, I generally only use Word for simple word processing. However, I think it could facilitate more fun and authentic learning if teachers and students worked together to stretch its applications. For instance, students could produce a classroom newspaper. The students would write copy, insert pictures/graphics, etc. (incorporate math skills for financial news, social studies for current events, science for other articles... the possibilities are endless), and the teacher could be the editor. Students would submit their articles electronically via Word, and the teacher could submit edits by using track changes. In addition to all the learning that would be going on (kind of like short inquiry projects with a cohesive, ongoing final product), I think this would facilitate the development of a classroom community where everyone (teacher included) is working together to accomplish something.

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