Blog Post Number 2

As a student, I don't think there is any single program that has proven more useful and resourceful than Microsoft Word. The first time I really remember Word becoming important to me was in middle school because I would suppose this is when we started using word processing to produce documents for our classes. We began to type up weekly assignments for my Language Arts class in seventh and eighth grade, and I became infinitely better at typing that year. I clearly remember that my best friend had Word Perfect and I was jealous because I thought it was cooler than plain old Word and I pressured my mom to purchase it. We did not purchase it, but needless to say, Word has been more than enough to get me through my years as a students. The high school years were where Word definitely was the biggest asset to me, with all of the research papers and projects that I compiled over those four years. When I began to learn MLA style to write research papers in my Dual Enrollment classes, I do believe Word was the most accessed program on my computer for a while.
I have seen my teachers use Word in the past, as well. I have clear memories of teachers having newsletters and hand-outs throughout my years, even starting in elementary school, that no doubt were produced using Word. In high school, when the technology in the classrooms began to expand and SmartBoards were installed in the classrooms, Word became a template for teachers to type up bullet points for their lectures, or important notes for the class to copy. When I am a teacher, I am sure I will use Word for these purposes and beyond. I plan to take after my middle school Language Arts teacher in a lot of my teaching style as this is the same subject I will be teaching, so I hope to teach my students a lot about Word and what this dynamic program can do to improve their study skills and make their lives easier when they enter high school.
I have encountered countless new skills already in this class that I believe will assist me in my teaching career. CutePDF was a program of which I had never heard, and I believe will be a crucial resource for me as a teacher when I am surfing the web to research for my class. I learned about zipping a folder, about which I knew, but never fully understood the concept. But I believe the area in which I have learned the most is Microsoft Word itself. I had no idea how to utilize the very many options that you have including columns, shading and especially mail merge! I believe mail merge will probably prove to be the most useful thing that I have encountered as of now in this class. Considering this is only the third week of class, I know that I will continue to learn!