Professor Teaches Office Super Set

The new version of Office 2010 seemed so different from the previous versions. Getting this tutorial helped walk me through all of the changes, making me the Office Expert at work. This saved me an enormous amount of time and money not having to take classes at the local college. Now I'm looking forward to setting up my own website with the help of this software!

While I have not completed all of the programs in this collection, I must say that I am rather impressed with it (the fantastic price that I was able to get it from Amazon made it even better).

The first reason I chose this collection is the immense amount of software that it covers. It's easy to find this and other similar training software for Windows and Office, but this one throws in Quickbooks and a good number of programs from the Adobe Creative Suite (CS3 and CS4 for those of you familiar with this software). I assist in my company's IT department frequently (hardware and software, server administration, etc), so learning new software is not generally difficult for me. However, as most users of Microsoft Office and ESPECIALLY any Adobe graphics and web design software know, you can NEVER know everything about these programs. Quickbooks was the first item of importance to me, and I like the way the Professor Teaches Quickbooks software not only teaches Quickbooks, but it helped me brush up on my accounting basics, since accounting is a big part of my job as well.

Here's what I like about the Professor Teaches software:
1. I find video training easier than reading a book. It feels more interactive and you can focus on what the narrator is saying in addition to looking at screenshots that accompany the explanations.
2. Interactive training usually benefits most trainees the most (I can learn this quicker if I can "do" it, not just watch someone else do it). The Professor Teaches software does just that. As the lessons progress, they will give you the opportunity to "click" on the specified button/function to simulate how the software you are training in will behave. This is probably most useful for someone who has never used the software before and is less familiar with the button and menu placement.
3. The lessons are divided into chapters that break down the training into sections. When you begin a section, it will tell you approximately how long it will take to complete. However, if you do not complete the section in one sitting, you can still resume from where you left off.
4. If you would prefer to read instead of listen, you can disable the audio and read through each slide in the lesson (may be quicker for some users - read why in my "don't like" below).

Here's what I don't like about the Professor Teaches software:
1. This is a biggie for me: The narration is somewhat monotone. Unlike watching videos on other video training sites, where the narrator may interject concepts that relate to the topic being discussed, the narrator on Professor Teaches reads verbatim the text on the screen with little emotion or expression. It does not sound robotic to me, but certainly different than what I am accustomed to on video training sites.
2. There is no way to speed up or slow down the narrator. The narrator speaks VERY clearly and precisely (may be helpful for those who are not native English speakers), but I sometimes find I can read the text on the screen twice as fast as he does, which defeats the purpose of having the audio at all.

As you can see, there is more about the Professor Teaches software that I do like vs. what I don't. I highly recommend this training software, although if you are a highly interactive learner that likes to ask questions and repeat the steps as they are being explained, you may be less satisfied by this teaching technique. This is where a classroom environment may be more helpful. But for most users, the price cannot be beat for what this software offers, and it is not "throwaway" software. You will likely find yourself going back and repeating small sections to refresh your memory. I already have!

Good product for the price. Loads on the computer easily, highly recommend for those that want to learn how to use Microsoft office products.

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