Documenting a Day

In week two of my Fundamentals of Information Technology and Literacy course we had to use multiple Microsoft Office applications to document our day. I had to create a journal about my day in Microsoft Word, an excel spreadsheet that showed the percentage of time I spend doing things throughout the day, a PowerPoint presentation about my day, and an access application that showed the priorities of what I do throughout the day.  Some of these software applications where harder for me than others. This blog post will be an overview of my thoughts and experiences using these applications for this assignment. 

I found the Microsoft Word portion of this weeks assignment by far the easiest part to complete. I think this is because I use the Word application on a daily basis. Word is the perfect application for typing letters and papers as well as things like flyers. I believe that this was the most appropriate application for documenting the journal about my day. This application is also perfect for writing school papers which is what I use it for most often.

I found the excel portion to be rather easy to complete as well. Excel documents are fantastic for creating spreadsheets for all sorts of different topics. It is rather easy to use and you can sort the different cells, as well as add formulas to the cells. This allows you to change information in one cell, without having to then change the entire spreadsheet. For instance, in our assignment we documented different tasks that we spend time on throughout a 24 hour day. Then, we used the time spent to create the percentage of time we spent on each task. In excel, you can easily change the time spent, and the percentage will automatically change with the new information. If we had created a table in word instead, the person inputting the information would have to do the math every time. Because excel was used, those changes change the cells because formulas were inputted.

PowerPoint was another area where I didn’t have any trouble. I’ve made numerous PowerPoint presentations throughout my life. I don’t think that this application really made sense with creating a presentation about what happened throughout my day. I mostly added pictures because I didn’t have much to actually present. I felt like using this application for this assignment didn’t really make much sense. PowerPoint is the perfect application for creating presentations to share information or pictures. There are many different ways this application can be used. At my job, we have monthly presentations that are made in PowerPoint that share new polices, or the performance numbers we have achieved. I think uses like this are much more appropriate than sharing information about my day.

The last application that we used this week was Access. Access is a database application. This was the very first time I have ever used this application, and I really didn’t understand it. While I do understand using databases for things like inventory management, or saving shipping and information on customers, I didn’t understand the point of this particular assignment as it relates to Access. We really just changed how information was sorted and to show different priorities, but this assignment didn’t really help me with understanding the actual application itself. I’m not sure if I did this portion incorrectly, but it is certainly the application that I need the most help with.

By far Access was the application that I struggled with the most. I think over my years of using Microsoft's Office products, Access was the one I really didn't have any experience with. All of the rest of the applications I have used for a multitude of different projects over the years. Each application has its own specific uses from creating spreadsheets to major presentations. I don't believe that any one of these applications can be compared to each other and work together as a set perfectly.