Get a (Microsoft) Life

I think I might need a 12-step program to wean my teenager off Microsoft products before she graduates from college and discovers she can't run to Best Buy to purchase a product called Microsoft Life for $199.

She's only 14, but Microsoft already has her hooked on at least 8 products. She now has her heart set on the 9th - Microsoft Student 2006. While analysts warn us about something they've coined the Digital Divide, with a sticker price of approximately $99.99, do you think I'm a bad parent if I let her fall into the crevice?

It all started when I purchased her a computer when she was still too little to pour milk over her own cereal. I admit it; I took the whole "no child left behind" campaign pretty seriously. I had visions of my child working in a coal mine due to a lack of proper cognitive skills. I could see her face blackened, a huge flashlight fastened to her head, signing her time card with an X.

Over the weekend, I followed her around to take an inventory of the items she uses. From grooming to clothing, she has a wide variety of products and no two are from the same company. However, in the course of 2 days she used Windows XP (of course), Microsoft Passport, Hotmail, MSN Messenger, Explorer, MS Word, FrontPage, Encarta and MapPoint. Microsoft certainly has a monopoly on my daughter's online leisure time. But should I let them make the leap into her education, too?

Microsoft Student 2006 is designed to "help students efficiently complete high-quality homework assignments and achieve academic success." It sounds like the definition of a good parent to me, but what do I know? As Microsoft explains, "Parents often feel ill-equipped to lend support because they have been out of school for many years and do not remember some of the basics of how to do a math problem or begin a research paper." Allow me a moment to wipe the drool off my chin before we take a look at what it the software actually does.

LANGUAGE SOFTWARE:
Here you'll find templates to help write foreign language papers. Included is a translation dictionary with an editor that enables students to use language-specific characters and flag misspelled words. However, Windows XP already provides font support for displaying, editing, and printing multilingual documents. And although the translation dictionary is nice, it would be better if my daughter could actually translate the words herself. After all, that's why we signed her up for the class, right?

POWERPOINT:
This version features homework-related templates for PowerPoint which provides quick access to symbols and tools relevant to the topic at hand. Is it essential? No. Templates are nice to have, but it's just as well if students learn how to create presentations from scratch. In the real world, your boss isn't going to give you a template for that marketing presentation or creative campaign. An hour scrolling through the PowerPoint features with your child would be your best bet. You know how the saying goes: Give your child a template, they have one presentation. Teach them how to make a template and they can make presentations for life.

EXCEL:
A nice watered-down version of Excel is included. I like it and I'll tell you why: The real version is too powerful for most adults to manipulate. I've had co-workers who could do this and co-workers who could do that, but I've never met anyone who knew how to do everything in Excel. If the world ever holds an Office Olympics, Excel would be the event I'd love to watch. This version of Excel is enough to get the job done and might even give your kids the confidence to jump into the more robust version. I said might.

GRAPHING CALCULATOR & MATH HOMEWORK HELP:
I love it. It's the first fully functional graphing calculator software for the consumer market. This software alone is worth the price of the entire suite. Whether your kid struggles with math or spends weekends calculating the best angle to launch a homemade rocket, this computer-based calculator blows handheld calculators out of the classroom. I never knew the functions of half the buttons on my college calculator until I had to use them. But with Microsoft's Graphing Calculator, students just mouse over the key and it provides a description of the function. A bevy of expanding and contracting features makes calculations a breeze and for those who are more visual, math concepts are in full-color graphs that students can rotate and animate. It's a powerful, clever tool and I would rate this one as essential. But most students will probably prefer to play with the changeable skins. Regardless, the homework help feature is broken into four categories: basic math, algebra, advance algebra and geometry. Students can select the actual textbook used in their math class and get assistance on any chapter, page or problem. Don't worry; it's not a way for kids to cheat on homework. The answers aren't given. Instead, the program walks students through the reasoning process and teaches them how to apply the logic.

WEB COMPANION:
No, web companion is not a chat buddy. Powered by Encarta, this feature is a pop-up window that assists in providing search results. It's pretty easy and pretty basic. However, learning how to conduct effective online research is part of the whole learning process. Isn't internet access enough? Aren't we dumbing-down our kids? What's next? Microsoft Doctor? "I'm sorry, sir, I can't diagnose you, my Doctor Companion is down."

ENCARTA PREMIUM:
This is a disk-based encyclopedia offering up to 70,000 articles. It's combined with multimedia content such as photos, illustrations, audio clips, videos, animation, 3-D virtual tours as well as an interactive world atlas. It's not half bad and it's certainly going to speed up any homework assignments. However, it was only a few months ago when Lucian George, a 12-year-old from London, pointed out 5 errors to the publishers of Encyclopedia Britannica. References can be wrong. Does this mean that misprints in Encarta could mislead an entire classroom? A story about a cliff and a group of friends is coming to mind. I think Encarta material should be used in conjunction with other references, but I'm afraid it might be used as a sole resource unless teachers protest.

BOOK SUMMARIES:
A feature I'd love to delete. If you want to know what happens in a book, read the book. If my daughter wants to learn about an author, I prefer she cracked open an autobiography from the library. These chopped up, spoon-fed facts will not help her "appreciate classic works of literature" as Microsoft claims. The software enables students to whiz through, grab a few facts and plug them in to a report. Who are we kidding? The only way to appreciate classic work is to actually read classic work. No summary can compare to the good feeling I had when I reached the last page of Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding. Maybe if kids weren't so busy playing computer games, they'd have more time to read. I digress.

BOOK QUOTATIONS:
This is absolutely not essential. The web is full of quotations. Hundreds of websites are devoted to collecting quotes and they're already out there, arranged by subject, author, date...you name it. It's a nice feature for children under 12, but older kids will probably find themselves surfing the web anyway.

After all this rambling, here's what is needed if you decide you want to test drive the software:

Processor Multimedia PC with a Pentium 500 MHz
(1 GHz recommended) or higher processor
Operating System Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP4 or Windows XP.

Learning Essentials requires Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP4 or Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003 or Microsoft Office XP.
Memory Minimum 256 MB required for Windows 2000 Professional SP4 or Windows XP
Hard Disk Up to 850 MB of available hard-disk space
Disk Drive DVD-ROM Drive
Video Memory 4 MB or more
Input Device Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft IntelliMouse®, or compatible pointing device
Monitor Super VGA 16-bit or higher monitor supporting 800x600 resolution
Optional Local bus video with 1 MB or more of video memory;
16-bit sound card with speakers or headphones

Additional items or services required to use certain features include these:
• Some features require an Internet connection and a 28.8Kbps or faster modem.
• Internet functionality requires an Internet service provider; local and long-distance telephone toll charges may apply.
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 (included on disc) or later; users can maintain other default browsers after installation (requires up to 75 MB of additional hard disk space).
• Updates are available through Update Encarta; up to 4 MB of additional hard disk space is required for each month's installment.
• Registration for Club Encarta requires a Microsoft Passport and an Internet connection.
• Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 requires an additional 160 MB of hard disk space (included on disc)
• To access sounds and videos, Microsoft Windows Media® Player 7.1 is required.