Using Microsoft word as a student is a pretty common practice. While growing up, most of my teachers made me use word, although I hated it. Now it seems like a very useful skill to have. This is due to the fact that it is just so common in today's workforce.

Copyright and fair use are an interesting topic that goes along with all this. It is very important to know when you are infringing and when you are not. Today, many people make youtube videos that get copystrike marks on them because they don't know how to utilize fair use. In general it is widely accepted through use of parody law and other similar ventures. Just don't be so blatant is my point.

In order to fix academic dishonesty we need to hold the students accountable. We also need to dive deeper into the psychology of it and figure out what made these students feel a lack of motivation with their work. Lack of funding is a tough problem to fix because it is institutionalized. I think that in general if our school board is more mindful of where they put their money then it can be fixed to some degree.