iWorks vs. Microsoft Office

[Jim Heynderickx]

Hi, All

Here's a dilemma. In a 70 percent Mac / 30 percent Windows school that has standardized on Microsoft Office, does it make sense to introduce iWorks to a fair percentatge of users.

Let's assume there are real benefits to using Keynote, for example. However, do those benefits outweight the possible sharing problems with non-Keynote users. Is it possible that having two options for presenations (and word processing, spreadsheets) could have a negative effect on collaboration?

Online options, like Google Apps, are more universal, but perhaps too limiting.

Anyone out there supporting Keynote and PowerPoint in the same environment yet?

Thanks!

[Matt Montagne]

we're at the point where people are using whatever presentation tool they'd like. Prezi, Powerpoint, movie maker, Google Presentation, Impress, Symphony, Keynote, three panel poster board...it really doesn't matter to us. The same is true of word processors...pages, google docs, word, writer, Symphony, whatever. It was cool to see a class in the lab a few weeks ago where three different word processors where being utilized.

[Jim Foley]

I'm with Matt on this one. I doubt it will limit collaboration - for the most part, it's so easy to export in and out of different file formats that I doubt you'll see much trouble.

[Jim Heynderickx]

Thanks for the comments. Matt is likely right, but I was wondering if the export functions are that good. I've read that even Keynots going from iMac to iPad can lose content or material.

Since we're a large school, my concern is what happens when collaboration takes place, and some members are one one tool, and the others can't be because Keynote isn't cross platform. My other concern is a major paper being converted to another format, and then losing footnotes or other content that affect the grade. I know this shouldn't happen, but...

We'll try out some trails-- but my staff still talks about the "Clarisworks" years, when no-long-compatible files took years of support to help users convert...

[Karl Schaefer]

We dumped Office last year for the Middle and Lower School. OpenOffice and iWork '09 have worked pretty well for the most part. There have been issues with students working in iWork '09 at school and forgetting to export to PowerPoint so they can email it to themselves to work on home with PowerPoint. We have begun to use Google Docs which eliminates those issues and frankly helps us focus on the Zen of presentations more. If students need to work at home and school, Google Docs works very well. If they are making something to show or to use only at school, they choose. I have seen students do all of the work in Keynote and upload the file to their Google Account as a Keynote to transfer home. The tools should be almost invisible and to most students, it is becoming that way more and more. There can be some issues with converting Keynote to PowerPoint to Google Presentation. Most often I see fonts missing as the biggest and of course image wrapping etc..

iPad document creation in Keynote or Pages to me is unacceptable unless the user is willing to accept the poor implementation of file transfer. I do have Office2 HD working with Google Docs on my iPad but not without some issues related to formatting. I think Google and Apple will get the mobile versions to work at some point, but ...

I agree with Matt as when I see the "Word Processing" Choices being made by students based on need, I smile. Choices matter and choices are good.