Does your software at home match up with the software at school? If it doesn't, you probably have a hard time completing assignments that you started in one place and need to finish in another. You may also not be able to print out an assignment at school if you have worked on it at home.

There is a fairly easy solution to this problem. Open Office is a free software package that is compatible with the software that we use at school. It contains a word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation designer (similar to PowerPoint) and a drawing program. You should be able to use these applications to open and edit MicroSoft Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, and Paint files. The student edition of MicroSoft Office Suite costs $150. Open Office is FREE!

If you are interested in trying this out, go to http://www.openoffice.org/ to download your free copy.

One of the frustrations that students deal with is transporting digital work between home and school. How can you continue to work at home on a document or slideshow that you have started at school? Some students carry flash drives; others use email to send work to themselves. If you install a Dropbox on your home computer, you will be able to access any files that you \"drop\" into it from any internet connected computer.

Some things you need to know how to do in order to use this feature:

· download and install programs

· save files to specific locations

· check the computer you are using for software compatibility (so you can view/edit your files)

Follow the link below to get started.

http://db.tt/peoDutl

Dropbox is an option that you can use to access your files from home or school or anywhere with an internet connection.

Follow the link below to a great tool that you can add to MicroSoft Word. This free plugin will place a menu on your tool bar that can read your Word documents out loud. Be prepared -- it's a computer voice, not a real person -- so it may sound a bit strange at first. It also has a talking spell checker and thesaurus so you can hear the different word choices.

How can this be helpful to you? When you need to proofread your work, it is very useful to hear your writing out loud. Sometimes we don't notice mistakes when we just read with our eyes.

www.wordtalk.org.uk/Home/

P.S. Check my Resource page for this and other useful links.