Welcome back to EdTech Moment.  Microsoft Office has been the standard tool for office productivity, but today we will look at a free, open source alternative called Open Office.  This office suite can be downloaded for free for either Mac or Windows from http://openoffice.org

Open Office includes tools for Word Processing, Presentations, Spreadsheets, Drawing, Database, and Mathematic formulas.  You will find all the same tools and functions that you are used to seeing in other more expensive productivity software, but you will not need to pay licensing fees for installing in your lab or classroom computers, and will never need to pay for updates.

Open office is also compatible with other software and can open and export many popular file formats including the standard Microsoft formats as well as other open formats such as rtf, text, HTML, and pdf.

Whether you're looking for a productivity suite for your own use, for your classroom computers or need an inexpensive recommendation for your students check out http://openoffice.org. I think you'll find what you need at a much better price than your old office suite.