Week 5

I have always been a big fan of Microsoft Office and all the different things you can easily do with it, especially Word.  It might be the "nerd" in me, or the procrastination... but I always used to play around with Word and try to figure out new things to do within in.

I still find myself learning new techniques, especially during the projects I've had to do at UB so far.  I don't particularly love the paragraph tool, but I do find myself using it at the end of writing a paper just to make sure everything looks nice.  Thankfully it does!

By far, the best thing I could have ever learned to do in Word is adjust bullets, paragraphs, etc.  I can't tell you how many times I tried formatting a resume in my undergrad until I learned how to really do it the right way.  I use it all the time, probably even when I don't have to use it... maybe I'm making up for all that frustration and lost time!

And staying with Word -- I never thought I'd say this, but I absolutely love EndNote.  I could not figure out how to properly use it last semester and I ended up citing everything the long way, but I've finally taken the time (and it wasn't even that much time!) to figure it out... it makes everything so clean, neat, and easy!  I know there's plenty more I can learn to do with EndNote, which I hope I figure out soon, but just figuring out how to attach citations simply and keep track of my references makes me a happy camper.  No more Word docs of links to articles and journals for this girl!

SmartMusic and Finale

While I was student teaching, the students regularly used SmartMusic in lessons.  Mostly the program was used for the accompaniment and the student's had their own sheet music so they weren't reading off the computer.  This is definitely something I wish I had growing up because when it came to All-State solos, I wasn't used to playing with a piano and when I first started it would always through me off!  I think it's great for the students to hear how the piano compliments their performance and there's more than just reading the notes off the page.

As far as Finale, I must say I absolutely love scanning pieces in!  What a time saver, considering I'm working on a laptop without the numeric keypad.  Using the numbers on top of my laptop is helpful, but nothing compares (in my opinion) to having a numeric keypad to work with when inputting.  It's kind of amazing how Finale can read and input music from a sheet of paper you scanned.  I can only imagine what deceased composers would think if they only knew what advancements would occur in music technology!