I am already a big fan of OpenOffice. I purchased a new laptop last year and didn't want to have to spend extra money on Microsoft Office, so I downloaded that and was very happy with it. We also have downloaded that software on our school computers (which has really thrown the kids off). I personally like OpenOffice and I have fewer issues with it than I did with Microsoft Office--what would happen is that our school computers would have outdated versions of it and our students would come in with the latest version and they'd either be unable to pull up their work or it would come up in wingdings or something. OpenOffice is able to seamlessly download different things.
I've worked with googledocs in the past and haven't been a huge fan. One thing I like is that, since I have a google account (my home "teacher" email is a gmail address), I can pull those docs up quickly. However, there was something about them, and I don't know if it was the organization of them or other aesthetics, but I just wasn't as comfortable with them. I still would rather use something like this than have to bow to the Bill Gates monopoly, and it is helpful with students who also have google accounts, as there are, once again, no formatting issues.
I, too, like Open Office, but it presented a learning curve for me, and I am still in it! In the library, I often went to www.zamzar.com to
ReplyDeleteconvert a student's work to a document that could be printed at school. If you have not looked at this, I recommend that you do so. It has proven to be very useful!