Microsoft Applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint & Outlook)

I never really become familiar with Microsoft applications until the final year of comprehensive school when my food technology project was fazing from hand written to typed work using word, and then began my love of all things Microsoft. Once I began working as a typist, I found I was faster typing then writing and I liked how letters could be defaulted, how different writing styles could be used and notes could be added. I was then introduced to Excel, which is like marmite – you either love it or hate it, well I love it. I use Excel in my personal life to sort my finances, in my work to calculate my mileage and in university to correlate my assignment due dates and marks. I can honestly say that I use Word or Excel every day and believe I will also do so in my teaching career from writing assignment briefs in Word to sorting student marks in Excel. I considered myself to be pretty clued up with Word; however, following an ICT lesson I found that Word will compile my reference list for me (I cannot believe I did three years in university without knowing this!) I will most certainly be using this tool in future assignments and in any referencing I have to do in my future career. From previous job roles, I also have a lot of experience of using Outlook and was always proud that I could put voting tabs into my e-mail. I do not use Outlook in my personal life but still find it a fantastic tool for sending group invites and sharing diaries.

I conducted some research regarding Microsoft applications and was surprised how many there were that I had not heard of, including Access, Exchange and Infopath (Microsoft, 2015).

I am someone who really likes PowerPoint, I like the familiarity of it and how quickly and easily I can use it. In a recent ICT lesson we learnt to create a master slide so the font and headings etc were the same on each slide and play with the designs and layouts. I can guarantee that I will be using PowerPoint in my future teaching; although, I think I need to be aware that I do not use it too much as it can become repetitive and boring for students.