Thing 11: Online Productivity Tools

The availability and use of online productivity, or web-based applications, (think word processing and spreadsheets) has exploded over the past two years and for good reasons. These powerful tools provide users with the ability to create and share documents over the Internet without the need of installed desktop applications. Some experts speculate that this emerging trend may mean the death to Microsoft Office and other software-based productivity tools, while others think web-based applications have their place, but not in the office. I will let you be the judge!

One large benefit to web-based applications it that they eliminate the need to worry about different software versions or file types as you email documents or move from one computer to another. Another bonus is that they accommodate collaboration by allowing multiple users to edit the same file (with version control) and also allow users to easily save and convert documents as multiple file types (including HTML and pdf). You can even use many of these tools, such as Google Docs and Zoho Writer to author and publish posts to your blog. It’s this type of integration with other web 2.0 tools that makes these web-based applications so appealing.

For this exercise, we will be taking a look at Google Documents, the Google online productivity suite.

Discovery Activity:

1. Check out the Common Craft video "Google Docs in Plain English" to see more on the benefits of using Google Documents.

2. Go to Google Docs at http://docs.google.com/ and sign in using the Google account you created when you started your blog (if you're already logged in, you can skip to the next step).

3. Once you're in Google Docs, take the "Quick Tour" to find out more. At the end of the tour, click on "Try it out."

4. Create a new document, spreadsheet or presentation on a subject of your choice (it does not need to be lengthy). Add some information and save it. Check out the Share option in the top right corner of the page. You can send other people an invitation to view and edit the file you just created. Now look at the Publish option. If you type up a document in Google Docs, you can use the publish option to send it to your Blogger blog.

5. After you create your document, "Share" it with Mary McMillan.

Bonus Option: Use the Google Docs tools to publish the document to your blog and share it with everyone.