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| Image courtesy of Akshay Waghray of Windows Latest |
It feels like it was not so long ago that most people could only use computers at school to perform special, pertinent tasks related to class assignments. Seeing a computer outside of the classroom, the computer lab or the library was a rare sight. You most certainly would be unlikely to find one in the typical household. But that was then, and this is now. Today, it is nearly unheard of for a family to not have at least one standard desktop, laptop, or tablet computer in their home for personal or professional use.
Computer use has also become a
staple for educational development. What used to be a mid-life struggle to
adapt to has become an early part of childhood development. I grew up during an
age when using computers as a learning aid in school began to blossom. Children
today are more acquainted with operating computers and their applications than
any of the previous generations. Applications like word processors,
presentation software, and spreadsheets not only prove their usefulness for
schoolwork and projects but also for specific personal use.
Functions of Microsoft Word, Excel & PowerPoint
Microsoft Word
Recently I went about the task of
documenting one of my days. To do so, I used several Microsoft (MS)
applications, the first being the word processor MS Word to log my day in
journal format. As I typed, I would stop to confirm corrections for spelling or
grammatical errors that were being flagged in real-time by the application. Now,
I am accustomed to this feature, but this was a reflective moment. I thought
about growing up as a kid in the 90s and how MS Word was not always this
proactive about catching issues in real-time. Back then you had to go into the
menu to initiate a spell-check to have to application check for errors, but
that is not the case anymore as it automatically checks for errors as they
occur.
In addition to being both the
spelling and grammar police, MS Word can format the document to have different
text styles and colors, bulleted lists, tables, charts, and pictures which can be
effective in adding to the tone and presentation of a document. The menus in MS
Word have a multitude of options and format settings to make the process of
document creation more enjoyable. There are also review and editing features
that make it easy to track the progress and changes to a document. Multiple
people working on the same project, can leave comments and make correction
suggestions right in the document without permanently erasing the content that
is already there. Other teammates can review the suggested changes to either
accept or reject them. I do not enjoy using MS Word for classwork purposes, but
it is enjoyable for me to use it for personal writing such as fictional
stories, journaling, and poetry.
Microsoft Excel
The next application I used to
document my day was Microsoft Excel. MS Excel is one of my favorite
applications to use for personal use. I used to be a big gamer. In the past,
when I had free time, I would often create spreadsheets for the games I was
playing. My favorite type of game would be a role-playing game (RPG) which can consist
of customizable characters that can be fitted with different items to adjust
their statistics. MS Excel not only allowed me to organize items by type, but I
could also categorize them by strength, damage, health, resistance, healing
ability, and other attributes. I would sort the items in a category from
strongest in class to weakest in class and use this feedback to build the best
combination of gear for my characters.
In more recent years, I have used
MS Excel for budgeting by using its mathematical features to track my income,
expenses, net income, and savings. I have also used it to make graphs and
charts for classwork requirements. For documenting my day, I simply used the
application to keep track of the number of hours I spent performing different
tasks. One column was populated with the labels for these tasks, which were
pretty umbrella. Task names consisted of working, sleeping, exercising, eating,
etc. In the next column, numbers were used to denote how much time had been
spent on each task. Next, the hours were totaled in another cell by using the
“SUM” function to add them up. This was a simple use for the application.
Microsoft PowerPoint
The next and last application I
used to document my day was Microsoft PowerPoint, a type of presentation
software. Of the three applications, PowerPoint is arguably the most effective
for conveying my day. It took the MS Word document and translated it into a
bright and fun presentation full of visual backdrops, pictures, sounds, music,
and animations. The white paper document from Word and the statistical
characteristics of Excel simply do not pay proper respect to the events that
took place on my documented day. PowerPoint took a humdrum piece of white paper
and turned it into a short amateur movie presentation.
PowerPoint was most “effective” for
conveying my day because of how much more capable this method can be at demanding
the viewer’s attention. It is hard to speak for others, but speaking for
myself, I absorb information better through the use of images and demonstrations.
I would much prefer to receive the presentation before either of the other two
formats. That said, the application that is most “appropriate” for documenting
my day was MS Word as a document can be written without having to format or
organize. Documenting your day does not have to be flashy, but MS Word still
allows the user to import any images, tables, and graphs into the document to
aid the process.
Application Advantages and Disadvantages
The key advantage of MS Word is its
ability to compose documents from scratch or premade templates that may include
tables, photos, backgrounds, and other designs. MS Word has tools to help you
create the perfect document from start to finish. There are methods for
planning your document from outlining to drafting, proofreading, editing, and
layout. You can also add tables, charts, videos, and comments to help you organize
thoughts. MS Word also has features that allow people to work together on the
same document through shared editing.
Still, with all its advantages,
there are limitations to word processors like MS Word. As Nick Davis with
Techwalla.com states, “Spreadsheet and word processing programs are similar,
but a spreadsheet application is geared toward numerical data and a word
processing application is geared toward composing documents.” (n.d.) The
disadvantage of MS Word is that it does not have the presentation abilities
that you find in MS PowerPoint, and though you can create tables and charts, it
does not have the mathematical computing abilities of MS Excel. However, Excel
and PowerPoint have their drawbacks.
On one hand, Excel limits text to
cell locations. These cells can be manipulated, but the user must do so
carefully to not interfere with any mathematical functions or formulas that may
be in use. On the other hand, PowerPoint can be a bit over the top depending on
the nature of the assignment. PowerPoint has features to help the user build
beautifully crafted and expressive presentations, but it can be a tricky
application to learn.
PowerPoint’s features are overly
difficult, but that is not to say they are easy to implement if you do not have
the experience or become overwhelmed easily. It is also possible to misuse
PowerPoint by having slides that are text heavy by not implementing enough of
the other design elements (stock photos, images, music, animation, etc.). There
is also the issue of presentations not translating properly to other systems.
“If you have prepared your presentation on your computer and presented with
someone’s computer then you may face some issues. For example, if you use some
special fonts in your slides and those fonts are not available on another
computer, your presentation does not look interesting” (Rehman, n.d.).
The Wrap-Up
MS Excel, Word, and PowerPoint share similarities in how they can receive input from multiple sources, manipulate the format of the text, import and export data, store data, access storage, perform spelling and grammar checks, insert symbols, and manipulate graphics. Google offers its version of each of these types of applications in the form of Google Sheets, Google Docs, and Google Slides. A key benefit of using Google’s versions of spreadsheets, word processors, and presentation software is that they can be manipulated by multiple people in real time. They are great for teams of professionals and students alike, especially when team members cannot be in the same location. Each application has its strengths and weaknesses, but I would not personally consider any of these weaknesses to be disadvantageous. Rather the conclusion would be that the application is simply not the best suited for a particular task.
References:
- Davis, N. (n.d.) Differences Between Spreadsheets & Word Processing. Techwalla. https://www.techwalla.com/articles/differences-between-spreadsheets-word-processing
- Rehman, J. (n.d.) Advantages and disadvantages of Microsoft PowerPoint. IT Release. https://www.itrelease.com/2022/05/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-microsoft-powerpoint/
- Vahid, F., Lysecky, S., & Wheatland, N. (2019). TEC 101: Fundamentals of Information Technology & Literacy. zyBooks. https://learn.zybooks.com/zybook/TEC101
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