Productivity suites played a very crucial role in developing digital literacy and enhancing 21st-century skills among students by providing them with practical knowledge for the workforce. In my own experience working in diverse educational settings, particularly working with Piramal Foundation and Byju’s, I have seen how these tools help us in developing skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. Platforms such as docs, sheets and slides enabled my  students to format documents, analyze data, and create presentations that are very necessary for today’s digital world.  During my work on improving reading literacy among underserved communities, I have seen how introducing basic productivity tools helped my students in enhancing their knowledge and upgrading themselves with better skills.

Moreover, the cloud-based features of these suites helps in promoting teamwork, a skill that I have prioritized in my teaching. Reflecting on my previous work at Banyan Tree School, I encouraged students to use google slides presentations, helping them learn to work together on projects in real-time. While going through this blog by Anna McDonagh, he has mentioned the ability to collaborate digitally enhances  interpersonal and project management skills, both critical for today’s workplace. The use of productivity tools  has also helped my students to improve their communication skills by allowing them to present information in the class. Furthermore, providing students more opportunity to creatively design and integrate multimedia elements into their work will enhance their imagination power that will help them in future workforce.

These tools are widely used in various professional settings and giving students hands-on learning on these platforms will assist them in directly moving to the workforce. Their adaptability encourages lifelong learning, which I found useful as I moved through various roles in education, such as teaching, research, and mentoring. However, In my opinion there are still a lot of gaps that are still unaddressed. These tools  are excellent for building basic digital literacy, but during my work  with the Career Plus Program at Byju’s, Some students have faced numerous challenges  to utilize these resources due to a lack of equipment, internet connection, or software licenses. Thus, creating a digital divide that  prevents certain pupils from learning the full set of abilities that are required to succeed in modern professions.

Additionally, productivity suites do not always teach students how to follow digital ethics, privacy, or the critical evaluation of information, areas that are crucial for responsible digital citizenship. Another limitation is that online collaboration is easy where people can connect from remote areas but somehow they feel face to face communication to be more effective in understanding others skills such as emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and leadership  which  I believe they are better developed through direct human interaction.

 In conclusion, productivity suites are very important  for fostering essential digital and professional skills that provide students with a solid foundation for future career success. My experience in both urban and rural education settings has shown that while these tools offer great value, we also need to address the gaps in advanced technical training, digital ethics, and equitable access remains critical to fully preparing students for the challenges of the 21st-century workforce.

Productivity suites have always been used in education at all levels — preschool, elementary school, high school, and higher education. These productivity suites make learning and teaching more convenient. According to Mao (2020), especially nowadays, technology plays an integral role in the lives of students and teachers. Students use laptops and tablets to take down notes and do research, and also to access course materials online. Technology in the classroom also aids teachers in providing the students a more engaged learning experience. Cox (2024) mentions the different benefits of technology in the classroom, such as enhancing classroom engagement, preparing students for the digital world, and helping students connect with the wider world.

Photo by Pixies on Pixabay

Personally, I believe that education is essential is many aspects of work life, that is why it is beneficial for the younger students now to learn more about the usage of computers, because they will use this knowledge to apply for jobs in the future and use this technological knowledge when they are already in the workforce. The students of today will be less intimidated when working in companies and organizations because of their confidence and exposure in utilizing technology.

As a university student in the early 2000s, I remember when the internet was still relatively new (compared to this era!), and there were some educational websites already. But among all the productivity suites, what was then common and still is used regularly nowadays in the Microsoft Office suite. For education, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are always utilized by students. Perhaps it may be because of its being user-friendy, wherein, walking into the library, you see a lot of students typing their papers on Microsoft Word. And also educators who give their lectures on Microsoft PowerPoint.

Despite the longevity of the Microsoft Office suite, thought, there are many new productivity suites that the education sector uses nowadays. The lecture of Oleg Kagan of the LA County Library explains that there are more modern productivity suites used in education, such as Canva, Prezi, and Tome for lecture presentations. For students, aside from just typing notes in Microsoft Word, the newer programs and software are being utilized too, such as Microsoft OneNote, Evernote, and Notion. These are not just for note-taking, but also for storing images and videos. Truly, we are in the 21st century technology in education!

Even more advanced than the usual productivity suites used in education are cloud software and how it widens student access to learning, according to the article by Hennick (2023). With some schools choosing to use Chromebooks, which mainly use web-based software, cloud software is becoming more essential. Using cloud software, students are able to save files online without the use of a physical drive. They can also create presentations using Canva without the need to download the program in their computers.

With the wealth of information through the internet, and the multitude of choices available for students and teachers, we should also be wary of the limitations of technology in education. These productivity suites are tools, and nothing can replace the human knowledge. We should be able to assess our needs in using these tools. At the same time, especially for me, as an educator, I should consider the security and privacy of these productivity suites, and ensure that sensitive data is protected and data privacy policies are adhered to. With that, the educational sector will be able to effectively utilize these new technologies for the advancement of education in a positive manner.

We can’t imagine our lives without productivity suites anymore. Microsoft Office has enabled us to create various textual files, presentations, spreadsheets, etc., which completely changed the way students and instructors exchange information. Google Classroom became a life-savior for many teachers, especially during the pandemic, as it provided a comfortable space for them to interact with learners online. Even when we, the grad students, are working on a project together, our first step is always creating a shared space on a cloud platform like Google Workplace and Microsoft One Drive to brainstorm ideas and make initial drafts. As productivity tools become more and more widely used in the sphere of education, the question of their advantages, drawbacks, and future development becomes increasingly relevant.

The Influence of Productivity Suites on Learning

During the interactive part of the presentation held by my talented colleagues Ayushi, Gagan, and Mohammad, the facilitators conducted a poll asking the participants whether productivity suites help encourage or discourage creativity. My first thought was, “Of course they support creativity!” By the time I was ready to select the answer, I had already had some doubts, but I still voted in support of the productivity applications. However, the more I think about that, the more I see both the “light” and the “dark” sides of productivity suites.

On the one hand, productivity suites encourage student collaboration and make education more student-centered. Productivity applications allow instructors to effectively utilize cooperative and project-based teaching methods. For instance, Power Point has become almost a standard program for students’ projects, and similar tools such as Canva, Google Slides, or Prezi are also widely used by learners to prepare and demonstrate their creative assignments in class. Cloud platforms make cooperative teaching methods strive more than ever, as now learners are able to work on their tasks together even outside of the classroom. Moreover, productivity instruments are also helpful tools for the flipped classroom adherents who prefer their students to prepare for classes beforehand. Such platforms as Google Drive, Google Classroom, One Drive, and even our UR Courses website enable educators to conveniently share materials with learners. So, overall, there are plenty of ways productivity suites can benefit learning processes and outcomes.

As we have clearly witnessed in Ayushi, Gagan, and Mohammad’s presentation and in Dr. David Parsons’s lecture, productivity suites also fit well within several learning theories. For instance, Connectivism was developed as “a learning theory for the digital age” and was based on the fact that the interned has opened new ways for us to learn and share information. Connectivism is highly supportive of the idea of learning through online peer networks, and what can create a better environment for such networks than productivity suites? Consequently, productivity tools would be of great help to Community of Practice advocators who promote learning based on group participation and social relationships. With productivity suites, such relationships can be easily established between learners from all over the world.

On the other hand, according to the constructionist Seymour Papert, “nothing can be more absurd than an experiment in which computers are placed in a classroom where nothing else is changed.” I quite agree with this statement as I also believe that the new tools change the process of learning itself, and educators don’t always realize that. For instance, teachers should keep in mind that productivity tools may reduce students’ creativity and critical thinking skills as they provide too many ready-made formatting and editing options.

Another disadvantage of the cloud productivity platforms is that we often forget how fragile and vulnerable online world is, which was proven by one of my colleague’s experience. She works an ESL teacher, and she was actively using an interactive whiteboard to share resources and materials with her students. She also provided access to her whiteboard to her students, which allowed them to make edits and interact with the activities the teacher was displaying. Unfortunately, intentionally or by mistake, one of my colleague’s student once deleted the majority of materials that she had been accumulating on the interactive whiteboard over a long period of time, which made the instructor extremely frustrated. This example clearly shows that over-reliance on technology may cause one simple mistake or glitch to destroy long hours of one’s work, so backing up or keeping hard copies of the materials could always be good idea.

The Future of Productivity Suites (which rapidly becomes the present)

As it is mentioned in the article “Revolutionary Software: Milestones in the Development of Productivity Suites”, productivity suites have a bright future. In the next couple of years we would most likely witness the rise of productivity tools empowered by such technologies as artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Who knows, maybe in several years students will be using VR glasses in the classroom to create spectacular group projects set in other historical eras or even universes! As for AI, it is already increasing people’s productivity a lot by, for example, eliminating grammar mistakes in one’s writing or answering any questions in a flash. However, not all AI features align with the rules of academic integrity, which should be seriously considered by students.

The world of the productivity suites is not limited by just commonly used Google Workplace and Microsoft Office. Such open-source productivity suites as LibreOffice and Zoho Workplace can be employed to make learning more exciting and diverse. While LibreOffice is rather similar to Microsoft suite, it offers a wider range of educational instruments, such as a vector graphics and flowcharts creator or a formula editor. Zoho Workplace provides access to numerous built-in productivity applications which make group and/or business collaborations much easier.

By the way, as I was looking for the author of the “Revolutionary Software: Milestones in the Development of Productivity Suites” article for the reference purposes, I was astonished by the fact that it was actually composed by AI! How scary and at the same time exciting it is to realize that you are being taught by a machine, and you are citing the machine in your university assignment! However, as modern educators, we should do our best to embrace this new reality and find the ways for it to enhance our productivity and creativity.

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I am so glad, that I had been through such an informative presentation on Productivity suites and role of Presentation tools in our today’s online session, presented by Ayushi Rana, Gagan deep Kaur and Mohammad Aatif and I would like to thank them. I would also reflect on my learning through this presentation in this blog post. The concept and utilization of Productivity suites started with emergence of computers in between 1970 to 1980. Initially emerged productive suites included software like WordStar and WordPerfect, used to create, edit and format the documents. With the advent of educational technology, new productivity suites developed like, Google Workspace, Microsoft Office, cloud-based Productivity suites, Prezi, digital notes etc.

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Nowadays, these digital tools or productivity suites are universally applicable, in every sector and education is not an exemption. Microsoft was updated by induction of Office 365 in late 2011. Cloud-based Productivity gained popularity as Google Workspace and Office 365. Later to this mobile productivity suites were allowed for mobile devices in form of Microsoft Office Mobile and Google Docs. Thus, these Productive suites were made accessible through mobile devices. Most of the productivity suites are dependent on internet connectivity. These tools are way more beneficial for learning as they made education easy, impactful and remote. It has made it easy for teachers to deliver their content and keeping records of their students. Learning is also made interesting using productivity suites. Furthermore, remote learning or online learning is made possible through productivity suites only. It was evident from application of these tools during Corona Pandemic that how important these tools are for us. Group presentation, as experienced while our previous session, was carried on successfully using Prezi, an IT tool. Collaboration features are integrated into productivity suites for team work. Other component of digital tool also provides Artificial Intelligence to grab knowledge and information about various topics and for detecting Plagiarism.

But there are some limitations of it such as, it demands user to be technology savvy and proficient on it as not everyone is good at it. Additionally, sometimes it costs a lot of money to access some online source or for internet connection. Apart form this, internet connection can not be made available in some areas, hence these can not be applied to those underdeveloped areas. While accessing these sources, learning has to suffer sometimes, due to distractions caused by internet tools.

It is clear from above said reading that these resources have become an integral part of education system, applied in administration sector, teaching and demonstration and there is still ongoing evolvement in these services. In near future, we can expect more possibilities. We can expect much more from AI and machine learning to shape future generation productivity suites. AI can take up role of instructors, serving as virtual assistant and freeing some liabilities of teachers.

This lecture ended up by streamlining and choosing right productivity suites. In the end, I would like to say these software has made remarkable influence in education system and made teaching learning process easy and effective. Although, IT tools are used at full swings, yet there is a lot more scope and need in its advancement.

I have been through Revolutionary Software: Milestones in the Development of Productivity Suites | History of Computers

I have also watched https://youtu.be/xbdCT_tiq5M?si=Fg7FacAOD02x4cro

     As the world keeps changing, so do people need to change in terms of improvement. Any activities need to have refreshments, evaluations, and rooms for improvements. Those activities will be monotonous if the patterns are the same day by day, month to month, and year to year. These kinds of activities will be left behind by people who always look for improvements and positive changes. The activities of teaching and learning need to be improved to provide the best educational experience to people. To improve the educational activities, the needs to learn new skills and things are very crucial. Technology should be an important tool to facilitate teaching and learning activities, not only upgrading the educator’s skills in terms of lesson knowledge and teaching and learning methods.

     People start to realize that education is important. I think that people as well as educators try their best to accommodate and facilitate the learners with the knowledge not only from textbooks but from the current and latest technology at that time. The common technology to support the learners is the computer. Many activities we can do with computers. From writing emails, making presentations, and creating tasks. I have discussed how the world keeps changing every day. The technology has drastically changed. The world has relied on the internet to connect everything.  I think educational technology is more than just using computers and making presentations. It is more into the idea of using the current and up-to-date technology to bring impacts in education areas.

     Historical and philosophical cultures and research have shaped me to give the best teaching by combining teaching and learning activities with technology. I usually let my students make presentations and they can decorate as well as design their presentations. I think it is very important to give room for students to improve and show their tasks digitally. I always believe that something monotonous will trigger learners negatively. Finding and facilitating students with different and various activities will bring positive impacts in their education journeys.