Chapter 3: Application Software Productivity Tools for Educators

Chapter 3 begins covering the different operating systems available for today's computing needs. Though many people are most familiar with Windows (being the most used operating system in the world), others include Mac OS, Mac OS X, UNIX, and Linux. Each of these brings their own unique aspects of how the computer goes about running application software. I have been working with Windows XP since it came out in 2001, and would like to someday soon upgrade to Vista to see everything it has to offer along with the changes it brings. Something I found interesting was the note taking software. I knew things such as Tablet PCs existed, however I did not know how prevalent they were in today's schools. I would have loved to have something such as that to take notes in during my K-12 experience! Hopefully by the time I become a teacher and the years thereafter, technology will have progressed enough to make note taking software like this mainstream among nearly all schools across America. One thing that chapter 3 talks about that I look forward to learning is the grade book software. Each of my teachers utilized some sort of grade book program and I was always amazed at how easy and organized it made each student's grades appear.

Since my last posting, I learned how to do a lot more with Word in terms of visual items. By working on the newsletter and just playing around with some of the things Word does, I found myself learning new and exciting things. As a teacher, I plan on doing some sort of newsletter during the school year and found this past assignment to be very useful. I especially liked the idea of placing a shape behind all the other items on the newsletter on top of a colored background to make a professional, clean looking newsletter. By just doing that small feature, my newsletter had that extra bit of "kick" that it needed.

This class has already taught me a lot more than I thought it would. I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable when it comes to computers, but that comes to show you just how much there is to know! I don't think it's possible for anyone to really know everything! There's just so much! After talking to my Dad (a computer programmer at a hospital back home in Jacksonville) about everything I've learned, I realized even more how much more there is out there. I've always loved learning interesting new things… I don’t think I have to worry about that not happening in this class!