The Basic Three in Education
In the educational department,
there are three basic software tools: word processing software, spreadsheet
software, and presentation software.
Word
Processing Software
The first piece of software that
we encounter in education is word processing software. This piece of software is best explained as
software that creates documents and uses text to fill them (Roblyer &
Doering, 2013 p. 114). This piece of
software has become the most used of the three software tools in large part
because of the popularity of Microsoft Word (Roblyer & Doering, 2013 p. 116). Word processing software is great in
education because it allows students to get their work done faster while also
allowing the finished product to look more appealing and distinguishable. The one major disadvantage to this software
is the effect it has on handwriting (Roblyer & Doering 2013 p. 116). Since this software allows students to type,
handwriting is getting less and less attention in schools. This can if ignored enough, become a major
problem in the educational world.
Spreadsheet
Software
The next piece of software that
is used in the educational world is known as spreadsheet software. Spreadsheet software’s main design is to “organize
and manipulate numerical data” (Roblyer & Doering 2013 p. 122). This piece of software is most used in teacher’s
grade books as well as in mathematical exercises for students (Roblyer &
Doering 2013 p. 114). This software has
been highly praised for making mathematics more exciting for students (Roblyer
& Doering 2013 p. 125). The main
format for this software is a row and column look with the cell being the
meeting place. The numbers can be
entered into the cells as well as formulas for making quick calculations. The most popular form of this spreadsheet
software is Microsoft Excel.
Presentation
Software
The last of the basic three
software tools is what is known as presentation software. According to Roblyer & Doering,
presentation software is software that is designed to display information
through images, text, video, or audio format (2013 p. 134). This software has an array of different
options and because of this it has many opportunities to impact students and
the classroom. However, a major critic
to this software is that it makes students pay attention to the variety of the
different slides instead of concentrating on the main message or topic (Roblyer
& Doering 2013 p. 130).
Classroom
Use
As a teacher, it would be
vitality important to have a firm grasp on all of these software tools. All of these tools provide unique formats to
help both the teacher and student achieve success in the classroom. If I had to pick a favorite though, I would have
to go with presentation software. The
reasoning behind this decision is because I am a history major. I firmly believe that images as well as audio
are vital when discussing history. It is the pictures from the events in history that really get the mind intrigued not
just the dates and text describing it.
Because of this factor, my teaching style would have to be molded in software
that has the capability to display images and videos with audio so that the
students can see and feel history not just read it.
Reference
Roblyer, M.D. & Doering, A.H.
(2013). Integrating educational
technology into teaching (6th Ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson
