Thing #18

I downloaded Open Office on my personal computer and played around with it today. I had already used Google Docs in one of the previous "things", but I revisited it and searched around some more. I loved the sounds, backgrounds, rulers, and bullets that were readily accessible when I opened a new document. I also liked that I could make drawings, presentations, spreadsheets all in the same program instead of having to go to Excell, or Access or Word. Both Google Docs and Open Office seem to be a little more user friendly that Microsoft Office's applications. I did however have trouble saving my Open Office document to the correct format, and I'm not sure how easy it would be for someone not using Open Office to open a document not saved .doc. As I begin each of these modules, my biggest hurdle seems to be my unwillingness to change. When I first thought about using Open Office or Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office I thought, why would I want to use something else? Why wouldn't Microsoft Office be the best? Why change? The same happened when the librarian at our school suggested that the number of books in circulation might be cut by a huge percentage. I thought why would that be neccessary? Books are always the best source of information. However, 23 Things has opened my eyes to the wealth of information at my fingertips. Information that is different, acquired differently, used differently, and I'm learning that that's ok.