Microsoft Word in real life
Image courtesy of Microsoft Word
Word processing software is an absolute essential to practically everyone I know. From my grandma to my little brother, everyone uses it and I think nearly everyone agrees that it’s a great tool for a lot of different reasons. Being in education classes and writing lesson plans and creating activities for my future classroom I’ve already gotten a taste of how much I will need to use it as a teacher. Worksheets, tests, handouts, they all require a mastery of word processing. What you hand your students needs to look professional or else they won’t take it seriously.
Microsoft Word is Awesome[]
Let me just say I am soo glad I took this class because it helped me learn a lot of great skills and access a lot of tools that Microsoft Word has that I wasn’t even aware of. I feel much more comfortable creating good looking documents in Word after having to create my own through various assignments in the class. I never thought I would actually be proud of making something so seemingly simple as a flyer but it just felt so good to create something that looked so professional and organized. I think the most valuable skill I gained was the ability to organize information onto a blank page. When you look at a blank page it can be intimidating because it’s hard to know where to start but now I feel like I have mastered the art of arranging images and text onto a page intended to be distributed.
Really the only ill feelings I have towards word processing software is the fact that I was never exposed to all of its features before this class! Because of this I will definitely be sure to incorporate more complex applications of Word in my classroom. I think the students will be excited to be able to create their own works of art using the computer. It feels good to create something that looks good and hopefully the students will find it as fun as I did to create documents in Word. Using word in the classroom can be done in a multitude of ways and I really think it would be a disservice to my students if they left my class not knowing at least a little bit more about how to use word processing to its potential.
Using it in the Classroom
A couple activities have come to mind that I would love to use in my classroom after doing my own assignments in my technology class. One idea I have is to create a template in Word that the students could use to take guided notes during class. I think this would be great because it will help students get more comfortable with using Word and it will allow them to see a strong example of how their notes should be organized. These are both skills that can carry over into other classes besides mine and can even carry over into their lives beyond education. The only limitation to this idea though is the fact that I might not be working in a school that provides access to computers for every student. But even then, if I could print them off they could handwrite their notes within the template organization still allowing them to keep their notes better organized. Another idea would be to have the students do a project that requires them to create a flyer or other graphic work in Word. This could be incorporated into a larger project or it could be a project in itself.
I think by integrating Word into the curriculum the students will have more confidence using word processing software in the future. Microsoft Word is an essential tool for so many things in life and it only makes sense to give them as much exposure as I reasonably can. Computers are the future of keeping, storing, organizing, and maintaining information and my classroom needs to reflect this need. While I still will need my students to be able to write without the use of computers I equally need them to be able to use word processing systems.