School districts should switch to OpenOffice.org instead of paying all that money for MS Office. I use OpenOffice.org Writer as my main word processor, and it does everything I need it to do. School districts must pay somewhere between $50 and $100 for MS Office for each and every computer in the school.  Every time the school replaces those computers (usually every 2-4 years), there will probably be a “new” version of MS Office that has tons of “new” features that no one will use, but the school district will still pay for.    This adds up to a lot of money.

On the other hand, OpenOffice.org is free!  Even if you believe that OpenOffice.org isn’t as good as MS Office, it’s hard to argue with that price.  As school budgets become tighter and tighter due to rising energy costs, health care costs, or new requirements under NCLB, OpenOffice.org will look better and better.

As I said, I’ve used Writer extensively, and I have no complaints. On the other hand, Impress (the PowerPoint clone) isn’t yet up to Powerpoint’s maturity. However, it’s close enough to get the job done. I haven’t used Calc (the Excel clone) much, but I bet the performance perfectly adequate, if not outstanding.  Plus, OpenOffice.org is becoming more and more mature with every release.  They’re only on their 2.0 release right now, where MS Office 2007 is their 10.0 release.

Someday soon, I believe, all students will be given a personal laptop for school use.  I’ll talk more about this in a later post, but just think about how much it will cost for a MS Office license of each of those machines.  $$$$$$$$$

Tradition and continuity are really the only reasons that schools are still buying MS Office, but not for long.

pbs.org is one of the best websites out there for teachers. PBS produces many top-notch shows, including Frontline, American Experience, and NOVA. Nearly all of their shows these days include web content and resources for teachers.

For instance, for the American Experience episode Reconstruction: The Second Civil War is very well done. The website includes additional materials and more research that didn’t make it into the show. There is also a section for teachers with lesson plans and other ideas about incorporating the show into the classroom.

The best way to find materials on a site as massive as pbs.org is to use my Search Engine for Educators.

Welcome to my weblog for teachers. I intend to use this site for several important purposes. I plan to keep track of the good lesson plans and activities I come across (or think up on my own). I also want a place to keep track of the teaching resources that I use such as videos, audio clips, or print materials that I find useful and engaging. I will also use this blog as a place to reflect upon my teaching. And of course, I want to share my collected wisdom with the teachers of the world. I teach high school social studies.