Thing 18

I didn't even bother with Open Office. I had Open Office on my home computer because I didn't have Microsoft Office at home for a while. Long story. Anyway, I downloaded Open Office to use until I got my computer updated. I hated it! It was so hard to work with. It doesn't have all the features I'm used to working with in Microsoft Office. Also, I could never create a new document. I could open Office documents, but if I needed to make a new doc, I had to delete what was on the document I opened so I could use it for my new work. It is very limiting and in a world where so much technology is available, I just couldn't trade Microsoft Office for Open Office, even though one is free and the other is really expensive. I did explore Google Docs. We did some exploring of Google Docs earlier on, but it was interesting to go back and explore again because I had a much easier time working with it than before. I made a slide show of my cat. It's just silly, but gave me practice with the format. The slideshow is really easy to use, easier in fact than Office because there are fewer choices to make as far as format goes. While I just said that I didn't like Open Office for that, I like Google Docs for that reason. It was easy to make a slide show. If I was still teaching 2nd grade, I would start here with this slideshow, and then move on to PowerPoint. It's a great starting place. PowerPoint can be overwhelming for younger kids, so starting with something simpler would make the transition easier. That doesn't mean I want to replace Microsoft in Spring Branch.
My Cat Slideshow
I was able to share this slideshow with a few people too. That is a really neat feature of Google Docs. Usually I have to email the parents the slideshows during my planning time. With Google Docs, you can share the slideshow by listing email addresses and writing a short note about what you are sending. That was really simple.