I don't know about you personally, but normally when I open up a new piece of technology the first item I look for is an instruction booklet. Especially the one that states 'Quick start menu', However in reality, how often do you find a booklet these days? or how often does it work that quickly? In this review I will be writing about my experiences with Microsoft Office software.
My first experience of using any kind of computer software was in the Metropolitan Police (Met) in London. To start with, it was a basic crime reporting programme that we all were trained up to use called Cris (Crime reporting information system). This was the main crime recording instrument which had been developed on an MS-DOS (Microsoft disk operating system) based system to mirror the paper based system which the Met Police had been using for well over 150 years. Progress is infinitely slow and laborious in government run public services and instead of being user/customer led it is normally pulled along by its nose according to the requirements for statistics from various government departments. We were literally dragged into the computer age with the introduction of desktop computers and told to make our arrest reports/case files on word for submission. Ahhhh those blissful days of firstly finding a computer that worked, especially at 2am in the morning, and then having to try and get the Microsoft Word software up and running, and set to a reasonable font and spacing invariably because some clever person before you had mucked them all up (and in some cases hidden all the tools). Perseverance my boy (and girls), perseverance.
The two pieces of software that I have used out of Microsoft Office frequently are Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint. I have also used Microsoft Excel for a short period as well and Microsoft Outlook, but to a much lesser extent. 
Word has developed so much over the years that instead of hating it like I used to I now regard it as a kind of digital friend. I have spent many a sleepless night weaving my way through a word document and having copious cups of tea and coffee, and talking to it in an effort to complete an assignment on time. Getting used to its frailties, it's tantrums, its mischievousness, its brilliance and its (or mine) utter stupidity when the document suddenly disappears for no reason. You know its there, BUT WHERE ????. Visions of lost work haunt me, so much so that despite knowing that Word automatically saves work over set time periods, I still save it in three different files/folders or memory sticks......just in case. 
PowerPoint, my new bestest friend that I talk to whilst drinking late night beverages and wondering what have I clicked on now, and where the heck has the last line disappeared to, and why has it gone THERE . I remember the days of teachers setting pages in books for you to read, and dictating passages of work to you.....those days are no more....you put it on PowerPoint. I am still in the early stages of wooing this marvelous piece of software. It is a fabulous tool, it is chock full of ideas and creative ways in which to make a presentation hit you squarely between the eyes. However there is a word of caution, you MUST remember, it's not ALL about the presentation, it's also about the students LEARNING.
The next piece of software is the Excel package. I must admit that this is the one I have had least experience of, but logically and practically, in the creation of spreadsheets it is very very good. I got to know it reasonably well during my dissertation but since then our relationship has deteriorated. It served a purpose but we have now moved on. No doubt our paths will cross again. In the meantime I have fond memories of inputting data and performing calculations which normally would have taken a considerable amount of time to do and getting the results in seconds instead. There IS only one spreadsheet package as far as I am concerned and that's EXCEL.
Last but not least is Microsoft's Outlook. Where do I start, NOT a big fan. It does what it is supposed to do as a platform and that's it as far as I am concerned. It may be because I only have to use it when I sign into the University's Office 365 account on Moodle to access University/student e-mails. I have used a separate system from talk talk at home for many a year and it is a far simpler and easier system to use. I do not find outlook user friendly at all and the time it takes for you to navigate your way around the system is far to long. Access to your e-mails can be far quicker and simpler. The only benefit is direct access to Onedrive, however even that is longer than using the Onedrive app outside the Outlook system. 
Is that it ! errr no, I have forgotten about my favourite, my saviour, my Onedrive. Onedrive has saved my neck on more than one occasion. It is my favourite of the Microsoft Office world applications. Not even Word has saved my neck as often as Onedrive. It is so easy to use to save your items and files to, and it is also easy to access. However you have to be fastidious in order to keep the files in a set order and dated accordingly otherwise it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. As far as I am concerned it should be firmly attached to Word.
So there you have it, my version of the top four of Microsoft Applications. All four have applications in teaching and learning. Word teaches the student how to format and write in a legible style, styles which can also be varied and personalised, both for themselves and for the purposes of submission as assignments. It also automatically saves work, just in case your younger students forget to. It can also be used with voice recognition software so that physically disabled students can speak into a microphone and produce work in Word.
PowerPoint is an educational tool within itself, it can produce stunning presentation displays with twists and turns and tweaks that grab your attention and entertain whilst at the same time delivering informative and knowledgeable displays. Whilst Excel, when set up properly can be an extremely time saving and productive tool for those students using extreme mathematical calculations or even simple and basic maths.
Outlook despite its unfriendliness does provide a platform to access and save e-mails which you can set to your own preferences. Making it easier to access certain information, this can be used as a learning tool for basic knowledge of learning how to access and send and keep e-mails. Lastly but not least, Onedrive. A vast storage facility which students can use to retain virtually everything that they produce in the Microsoft world and which they can dip into at anytime to retrieve their work as long as they have a computer, from anywhere on the planet where there is an internet connection.
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