My senior year a group of six students, including myself, had to write a story that was at least 150 pages long collaboratively. It was a daunting task, by far the longest and most challenging project I have ever had to embark on. We had five months to complete the task, but with so many cooks in the kitchen I was worried that some of my peers would slide by with a great grade, held up by the hard work of a few. Using both Microsoft Word, as well as Google Docs towards the end of the process we were able to complete the task and create an amazing work of fiction. We began the writing process by brainstorming, creating characters, mapping out our story and during the initial stages, creating short pieces independently using Microsoft Word. Once everyone had created some sliver of the story that we wanted to end with we printed swapped documents with each other via email and used Word to make any small changes we deemed necessary during the initial process. From that point on we did end up switching to Google Docs simply for the ability to work simultaneously from multiple locations on the same document, but our initial work in Word was key to our eventual success.
One thing that I never learned to do using Microsoft Word was to use the Mail Merge feature. After playing around with Mail Merge this week, I have come to the conclusion that it is a great way to generate letters and other materials to be sent home to parents while giving each letter a personalized touch with the use of a name, address, or any other customization you want. I will definitely be using this feature with my future classrooms and am so excited to be able to personalize material, without spending twenty extra minutes every time!
For those of you using Microsoft Word 2011, the above video is a great tutorial that shows you step by step how to create a Mail Merge letter that could easily be used in classrooms, by businesses, or for invitations! Let me know what you think about the Mail Merge feature and if you will be using this feature in your classrooms this year.