Office Technology is a simulated office or business setting in which students become acquainted with the skills, abilities, and attitudes needed for successful job performance in the technical business office environment. Students explore a wide range of procedures including; learning how to use office machines, developing keyboard and filing skills, creating business documents, developing complex spreadsheets, designing exciting presentations, building functional databases, working on desktop publishing, performing accounting and business math, learning the fundamentals of business and marketing, along with many more useful topics.
Students will be introduced to keyboarding and learn the basics of filing in the business world. Over the course of their high school career they will be utilizing the following software; Microsoft Word 2007, Microsoft Excel 2007, Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, Microsoft Access 2007, Microsoft Outlook 2007, Microsoft Publisher 2007, Microsoft Windows Movie Maker, as well as Internet Explorer and other specialized software used for the facilitation of learning accounting, finance, and business. Students will also become adept at operating different types of duplicating and copying machines, the electronic calculator in business, and even troubleshooting computers.
Students will not only learn how to format and create documents on word processing software, but also learn professionalism. They will not only learn how to create spreadsheets, but also understand how to manipulate their data. They will not only learn how to develop presentations, but also keep them business oriented while exciting at the same time. In addition to those skills, and others, they will begin to develop vocational skills and attitudes that are highly valued in the working world. Through using the computers, the knowledge of their instructors, and learning the fundamentals of business, the skills they can accumulate are, in one word, priceless.
During their junior and senior year students also have the opportunity to work on a cooperative program through our high school. This means students can obtain jobs related to Office Technology, and once approved by administration can work at their job sites during their shop weeks, while earning money and school credit at the same time. In a sense, students can obtain real world jobs before they even graduate from high school. This gives our students such a competitive edge in the world today, and as you can imagine, in the world we live in today with all the economic conditions and obstacles that face us, any edge that students have is a great one.
In the end, Office Technology is so much more than typing and filing documents. This field of study teaches a student how to succeed in the business world, and whether that student goes on to college, gets a job out of high school, or moves on to the military, the skills they pick up in Office Technology will remain with them all of their life. Along with the computer skills, business knowledge, and financial information a student learns in Office Technology, they will also learn professionalism, gain common sense, learn some real life lessons, and build a foundation that will last a lifetime. Office Technology is definitely a skill set every person in this world should learn.