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By Joshua Duran
By Joshua Duran
While Apple marches on with its plans for world domination, Microsoft has spent the last two years working with students’ instructors and parents to produce the most comprehensive student software package to date. This new software suite is intended for students from elementary school to graduate school and every student in between.
Microsoft’s Student 2006 is a collection of programs that adds new features to existing products to enhance student productivity and ease the learning process for instructors and students alike. Student 2006 includes curriculum based templates for Microsoft Office so students can create reports for social studies just as easily as they could for chemistry. Tutorials are also available that help teach students how to structure reports. Students can also see examples of thesis statements and other literary components, with explanations of how components work within an essay. An all new online compendium of over 1,000 literary works are also available from Encarta online to help students cut through the mass of information strewn about the Internet.The graphing calculator can be customized to individual student needs, so that each student gets what they need. The calculator can also produce three dimensional colorized graphs so students can fully understand math concepts. From grammar school to graduate school, the graphing calculator can be used by any student, and displays in multiple mathematical notations relevant to just about any math class.
The Learning Essentials component is a program designed to enhance Microsoft Office XP or 2003. Student 2006 with Learning Essentials is now available worldwide, and should make for a wonderful addition to any learning environment. Learning Essentials is being offered free of charge to schools that already have licenses from the Microsoft Academic Volume Licensing program.
Just remember no matter how much technology is available to students, it is still up to the student to learn. Take advantage of the software, but don’t take the software for granted.