MS Office, Zoho, Google Docs

Every semester, my students struggle with either 1) buying a copy of MS Office (and what to do about MS Access, which not many students will use after my class) or 2) using a pirated copy or 3) timing the 60-day trials offered by Microsoft, then still facing the necessity of purchasing something subsequently.

But now that Zoho, Google Docs, and OpenOffice are all encroaching on Microsoft Office's turf (with some impressive features), it begs the question as to whether we in academia can justify perpetuating Bill Gates' strangle-hold on office applications.

It's not that I'm dissatisfied with Office 2007; Microsoft has added really useful functionality (my students especially like the citations feature in Word 2007!); in addition, I've been kept steadily employed teaching the Office applications over the years.

But I've noticed that 1) more students are coming to college with Macs (which can use MS Office, but usually NOT the "exact" edition that the PC users have) 2) most students have used (at least) MW Word in high school (though the version changes sometimes confuse) and 3) most students are ignorant of such "side" applications as LiveOffice Workspace, Groove, and the collaboration features of Google Docs, etc.

So, are we teaching "enough" to prepare our students for using software in the Web 2.0 world? Are we myopically concentrating on "old" applications and ignoring "new" ones?

Certainly, this cannot be a "one school" decision; employers must decide what they think is important for new hires, which will then be reflected in the curriculum offered. And articulation agreements must also be revised as new software and skill sets are added to the "literacy" criteria.

In addition, advances in touch-screen and tablet computing are working their way into the classroom, especially in the lab sciences.

I won't be nailing these proposals on the chapel door anytime soon; nor do I expect to the dragged before the inquisition for espousing them. But the center of the software world may no longer be Redmond, Washington.