The ubiquitous Microsoft Office has invaded the educational environment and has become the de-facto standard for desktop publishing. With the department providing free licensing it is possible for both teachers and students to have access to the latest versions of the product.

While most students can cope with a product aimed primarily at small businesses, our younger users find the program too complex and the interface extremely unfriendly. Teachers of students in the first few years of schooling either try to avoid Microsoft Office altogether or use another product.

Last year Computer Corner had the opportunity of using a product called Max’s Sandbox which ran over the top of Word, Excel and PowerPoint and made Microsoft Office a useable proposition for our junior students. The program used large icons to supplement Microsoft Office’s menu bars. Click on an icon and the options for the menu were displayed beneath the icons. The program also came with a number of useful templates that were far more suitable for students that the offerings from Microsoft.

This year the Sandbox has become a Toolbox and the whole product has matured to become an almost must have for all primary schools. The product has lost none of its original functionality and has a number of enhancements. This is a product that we put on the top of our list of purchases to ensure our students have a smooth introduction to Microsoft Office.

Max’s Toolbox is like a huge macro that runs over the top of Microsoft Office and changes the size of the menus and their functionality. Click on the formatting icon in Max Write, the program for Microsoft Word, and the formatting menu is displayed on the next line down. A similar thing happens for all Microsoft Word menus. As an added bonus the children can even record their own voices and play them back. This type of functionality is maintained throughout the entire Toolbox collection.

Our Miss eight year old tester really enjoyed Max Show. She went out with a digital camera and took some photos of herself and friends in the pool and with about five minutes of instruction created a superb presentation with transitions, backgrounds, videos and speech despite not having used Microsoft PowerPoint before. She particularly like the way that Peedy, a little green bird, flew onto the screen and “spoke” her presentation.

She even enjoyed using the templates that come with Max Count, the program for Microsoft Excel, to do some multiplication and some memory cards.

What we liked about Max’s Toolbox, was how easy it was to configure. Want to set it up for a network that has individual logins and home directories? Easy. Want to add scanned images that are accessible to all users? Easy. All of this information is contained within the online manuals that come with the program. There is even a step-by-step tutorial to assist teachers and students to become accustomed to all aspect of the program.

As the publicity said, “Max’s Toolbox is a complete learning suite that keeps kids entertained while they develop knowledge and skills that can be directly transferred to Microsoft Office”.

Software supplied for review by Edsoft. Software reviewed by Rosemary McDowall and Bill Gillespie. Rosemary teaches at Mosman HS and Bill teaches at Seaforth PS. They can be contacted at computer_corner2000@yahoo.com