Microsoft Student Review

I was given the opportunity to review Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008. Are there any products I review that I don't like? Yes, but it is NOT this one.

I played around with the features a bit, then I brought a couple of children into the mix. We had some competitions going to see who could get the tests (disguised as games) correct with the least amount of tries. The games, which are all educational, are limitless. I really have no idea how many there are.

We played a game about matching animal sounds with their animal. Easy, right? Do you really know what a Panda sounds like? How about a whale? Or a mountain goat? It gets more difficult as you play. There are all sorts of gross and icky bugs to learn about. We enjoyed all the different games teaching about states, such as jigsaw puzzles, match states with flags or capitals.

So there are lots of fun things. But what about the real stuff, like trigonometry? OK, I have absolutely no idea what trigonometry is, other than some sort of math, so I put my brilliant 18 year old son on the task of testing the software. He was none to keen on giving it a try if I liked it.

Pretty soon I heard some things coming from his reluctant body. "Hmm!" "Whoa." "No way!" "Sweet! It just told me two ways to solve this problem!" "Ha! I finally found a problem it couldn't solve!"

After an hour he walked away and gave me his verdict. Decent. That means it is beyond fun and helpful and is full-fledged awesome, for those of you who do not speak teen.

There are math tools, science help, search areas, help with several foreign languages, graph learning, and even several very wonderful tools for learning to write essays and many others works. I plan to use it to learn to write better blog posts. But I can't promise anything.

My final verdict is that this is amazing and worth far more than the $49.95 retail value. This would be great for your struggling student or your dedicated student. Or for your average blogger!

You can purchase Microsoft Student, which comes with a 75 minute tutor.com trial, for download instantly or the order the discs.