Microsoft and Me

I have used Microsoft ever since I can remember. My first experiences with it was in comprehensive school. I have used most of the programmes provided with Microsoft, such as Word, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access, Excel and Outlook. I have used these programmes throughout my educational journey through school, college and university. I have always had a positive experience with each of the programmes although I am more confident using Word and PowerPoint as these are both the programmes that I have used the most and I think the most common ones that people use in education. I think that both of these programmes have benefited me throughout my education as both have different features that have helped me and also give variation in my work. College taught me to continuously save my work after having lost so much work due to computers constantly freezing and crashing. College eh?! With college work, there was a mix of assignments and presentations so that's where my confidence of those two programmes came from. Spending hours just messing around to find the right themes and colour that I thought looked the prettiest. When I got to university, I found referencing difficult to get my head around. Word was and still is my best friend in regards to referencing, as it has a referencing tool which does the referencing and bibliography for you. If anything it is probably part of the reason of me graduating.






The use of Microsoft has been essential in my education and I would probably be lost without it.

Summary of today's lesson

On reflection of today's lesson, it is clear to see that the use of ICT in teaching is important and not by just using the common applications that we all known to become to familiar with such as Word and PowerPoint. Today, I have learned of two new programmes that can aid learning in the classroom, these are Wordle and Hot Potatoes. Both of these will be great to use in the learning environment to enhance learning. My subject is Travel and Tourism (can't you tell?) like many other vocational subjects there are key words that need to be remembered throughout the learning process. Wordle will be a great tool for both myself and the students as they could create their own Wordle to help with exam revision and also to help remember key words throughout the year. The other programme Hot Potatoes was also a really good aid (not quite sure why its called that) which is basically a tool that creates quiz's and crosswords for you and then save them to your computer or post the link where you like. This will be a great form of a quick assessment at the end of the class to see if students have understood that lessons aims and objectives.

Entry numero uno

So, my first blog entry.




It has taken me around 2 hours from signing up to blogger to getting here. I thought myself as being computer literate, after this experience I need to re-evaluate this.