Microsoft Office and Back to School

Back-to-school shopping.

Many of us have to do it--some with more dread than others--with much excitement.

Guess which category I'm in? I love my children, but, let's face it-- I'm not cut out to be a home-schooling mom.

So we do the back-to-school shopping. Once upon a time, my back-to-school shopping consisted of choosing exactly the right pencils, glue sticks, crayons and tossing a few packets of paper into the cart. It has evolved, though, as my kids have gotten older, and that supply list has become much more sophisticated. Now it's almost a given that each child will need a few memory sticks, a special computer program (or three), and a graphing calculator. We've got computers at the house, which is good news indeed. I have a kid in college, a senior and a freshman in high school, a middle schooler and two elementary students-- and it seems that every night each of them has to do homework on the computer. I need to make sure that the computer is ready for all that's expected of it. What is absolutely mandatory on those computers? Microsoft Office 2010.

When I realized that I had been asked to write about Microsoft Office and Back-to-school shopping, I noticed that I had a perfect focus group in my house-- my teenagers. I asked my two oldest kids and their two visiting friends-- ages noted-- what their thoughts were on the Microsoft Office battalion of products, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

Ashley (18) said: PowerPoint is always consistent; it's already set up and the color schemes look professional. Word has the symbols that I need for math and languages.

Allegra (17) said: I like that I can go into PowerPoint and it does exactly what I want it to do. There are other programs that the school wants us to use, like Prezzi, and they are so hard to use that the projects are no fun. I like that it automatically creates an annotated biography for me when I use citations.

Brian (21) said: I bought a laptop when I first went to college. When I realized that I didn't have Microsoft Office, I immediately went out and bought it-- that's how important the Microsoft Office grouping is to me. It's all I've ever known, it's all I use for school. I mostly use PowerPoint and Word-- Word because it gives me the formatting skills that my professors demand.

Nik (20) said: I use Excel to create spreadsheets for business and Word for everything else. I'm so used to using Word-- that's what they've trained us on since grade school- that I find it difficult to switch.

When I asked all four if they'd like to be without Microsoft Office for school, the answer was the same for all-- NO. Complete with wide eyes and wide head shakes.

As for me, I too just bought a laptop-- and when we saw that there was no Microsoft Office on it, back to the store we went to buy it. Microsoft Office 2010 has everything that we need and I can't imagine not being able to use it. We've made sure that every computer at our house has the Microsoft Office suite-- there's just no way for the kids to be successful at schoolwork without it. With Office 2010, your kids will have everything they need to help express themselves and succeed-- Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote offer features that help kids collaborate on projects, take dynamic notes and give rich presentations-- which, one might hope, will help them get better grades.

And maybe scholarships in the future. I'm just sayin'.

Back-to-school shopping can be expensive-- trust me when I say that. These are the times that I wish for that crayons/special pencils/glue stick shopping cart I had years ago. Buy Office today with this link and save 15%-- but this is only good until September 14-- so grab it for your back-to-school needs.

Because as soon as you get through with back to school shopping, it's going to be time for--gasp-- HOLIDAY SHOPPING.

Be sure to visit Microsoft Office 2010's brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers posts.

Comments

[Megan]

I agree Office is essential, though for me it's always been the essential product I love to hate. I don't have a full version on my laptop at home because I didn't want to pay so much for it. I have a trial version, which has long since expired, so I can read stuff in it but I can't edit or save. I use a free product called Open Office, and it works pretty well, but I have to admit I miss the compatibility of Word. Everyone has it.

I found out I can buy Office at the university bookstore with my ID for $15. I really need to do that.

I use Word and Excel all the time for work. I'm amazed at how much I do in Excel, which I hated learning and never thought I'd need to use since I wasn't going into math or business. I was wrong. In a job where I have to always prove my results, I create charts, graphs and spreadsheets all the time.

[Amy]

I use Office at the office and while I don't love the changes in the 2010 rollout I'm adjusting; it's still the most user-friendly product out there to meet a variety of needs. Have your kids tried One Note? It's great for creating a virtual binder of notes separated by topics (classes?).