As a writer and teacher, I've been living a double life. Well, with my computer, anyway. For the longest time I have used Lotus software -- first Works, then AmiPro, then WordPro -- for my writing and Microsoft Word 97 for my school work. This means I have wasted much time over the past five years or so "saving as .rtf" so I can work on my campus computer or swap files with just about everyone else in the world. Aside from formatting, I have mostly used Microsoft Word for its "commenting" feature, which allows me to add marginal notes in student writing that I receive electronically (predominantly for the Writing Popular Fiction graduate program).

I used to think I was resisting the dominant paradigm and boycotting the hegemony of Microsoft, to some degree. But I also recently realized that I have been spending more and more time converting files and wasting time adjusting to the Word interface and back again than I should be. And I began to wonder if I could actually improve my productivity with a new (albeit boggy) program. In my research, I noticed cool new "commenting" features that actually put the comments right in the margin of the page. So I gave up. I decided to convert myself. I'm going Word 2003 (which hot off the CD burner), all the way.

Why put this in the Pedablogue? Because I discovered that teachers and students can get a really sweet/suite deal on Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003. I had originally found the cheapest way to upgrade Word to the 2003 version at pcnation.com. But I went to my local staples store just to compare, and ended up paying about $50 more and got the full Office version..and not only got a $50 gift check rebate from Staples but also enrolled in their new "Teacher Rewards" program which will rebate you 10% on every $100 you spend there. So I essentially got the whole Office suite for the price of upgrading Word alone and -- with the Teacher Rewards -- will ultimately get it cheaper than I would have at pcnation.

You are given THREE licenses of the Student-Teacher Edition, as well, allowing you to install the program on multiple machines.

I know that not everyone reading this cares about petty savings in software deals -- and even more will tell me that I should have resisted the Microsoft lure for ideological reasons. But I think I made the right choice and I thought I'd pass along the news here. I'm not sure how long that staples Office rebate will last, folks.

There are other benefits I hope to explore. Having MS Office on my home machine will help me interface with the software that is already installed in the "smart classrooms" on my campus and in all campus labs. This new Office package comes with PowerPoint, which I >might< try to use to lecture more often, and also Excel, which might help me better keep my gradebook. There are lots of educational uses for the Office suite. In fact, Microsoft at least tries to support education and educators in multiple ways, not just in giving us discounts on software. I think I've been resisting them for too long and for no good reason. They've won the office wars. It's what we do with the tools that matter... and so far, I'm loving them.

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