My first impression on coming "back in" to IT after so long out was that these applications are now so much more "full-featured" (i.e. complicated) than the older versions I was used to. The learning curve to achieve any reasonably formatted and correctly laid out documents is a very steep one.
Once again the question comes up - am I supposed to be teaching Business Studies, or training my students (and myself) on how to use these "powerful" applications.
Of course, knowledge of the ubiquitous Internet Explorer (and its' contemporaries) are a must-have these days. However, this is an example of an application that is easy to learn, and just "does what it says on the tin" - there is no need to traverse level after level of menus just to go to a website, for example.
Most people will have sat through a Powerpoint presentation that bored them to tears - slide after slide of bullet-pointed text, with (perhaps) a couple of images to lighten the pages. The reason that so many of these presentations are so tedious is that, as I said above, the length of time that is involved in producing "rich content" presentations is so great that, most non-IT professionals cannot spare the time, as they have to concentrate far more on the content than the "look and feel" of the slides.
All in all, are these applications right for me? As they are now the industry standard, I guess I'm stuck with them. Just don't expect "all-singing, all dancing" documents from me any time soon.....
You could improve this post, and many others by including hyperlinks to help your readers understand some of the technical aspects that you discuss.
ReplyDelete