Taking stock

3. Personal working use of software, including Microsoft applications.
 
I think it's worth taking a moment to reflect on where I'm starting from. My use of ICT is pretty basic.
It hasn't always been that way. Once I was something of a pioneer. In the late 1980s the newspaper business went from old-style hot metal printing to a newer way of doing things, and it happened just when I was a newbie reporter.

The technology shift resulted in confrontation (at times violent) between management and the print unions. Journalists, like me, were a side issue. Some resisted change, but I saw the new way of working as inevitable evolution. 
So, as a reporter I was one of first to use computers instead of typewriters and, a little later, as a sub-editor I designed pages on the new-fangled Quark software, rather than a sheet of paper.
More recently though I know I've mostly stuck to my comfort zone and let changes pass me by. My feeling is that as a freelance writer I'm now doing things in largely the same way as I did 10 or 15 years ago, but in doing a little audit for this post it has become apparent that just about every aspect has changed.

Interviewing: I do now record interviews rather than rely on shorthand notes (though notes on paper are still a must for the days when the voice recorder fails). Sound files can be archived on my computer.

Research: All now online, except interviews.

Outputs: I use Microsoft Word to write on and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to track spending and invoices. I don't often need to edit digital images, but when I do I use a fairly basic version of Photoshop.
I have tried a voice recognition package (Dragon), but me and it haven't got on too well. It's there on my desktop, but I rarely bother with it.
This is possibly the subject for a post of its own, but I think my creative brain is so used to the link from keyboarding fingers to words on the page that it can't re-learn the process.

Communication: Email has transformed the business of dealing with interviewees and clients. Also, online communities have changed the way that I can 'talk' to other people in my working world.
Page proofs that used to be sent through the post can now be emailed and correct as Adobe pdf documents.

Marketing: Over the last year or two social media as taken over as the marketing tool. Facebook and Twitter are now part of my daily routine.

That's where I am now. A lot of the above is transferable to teaching, but I know I have plenty more to learn. My first priority should be, I think, to become proficient with Microsoft PowerPoint - as well as mastering Blogger.