I was accused of being too nice to Microsoft yesterday. Before I get too MS-friendly, I should point out that they also have a suite of tools available to help students become more productive. Microsoft Student is a suite of tools that includes a graphing calculator, photo organizer, search tools, a dictionary, and an encyclopedia. Their book summaries include "over one thousand in-depth guides [to] help students gain a better understanding of popular literary works" — apparently without actually reading them. The suite also includes "complete sets of questions and answers taken directly from popular math textbooks," because the best math help they could possibly provide is to give students the right answers to their math homework.

The student software (unlike the free teacher software) retails for $50-70 depending on where you buy it. Oddly enough, there’s also an academic version for $30, as if there’s someone out there who would be a non-academic user of a product called "student."

To sweeten the deal, Student includes Learning Essentials for free. What a bargain.