Online Applications

Today I had a chance to try out Google Documents. Simply put, it was fun. I suppose this had more to do with the situation than the application itself. You can see the fun in adding:

• A sentence to our story about Sue--one that does not rhyme
• My classmates' favorite symbol to the collaborative presentation
• A Feist song to our party play list

I am interested in trying Google docs in serious project; perhaps one where, because of time or location, i cannot work side-by-side with a collaborator. It would be advantageous to have all the information in one place rather than in a multitude of email attachments. In addition, no one will have their lock stolen as they did in the class wiki.

The chat feature is a smart tool--in the midst of writing their lab report, "Johnny" and "Bobby" can decide whether they should mention that their Bunsen burner exploded--and they won't have to phone each other or log on to another chat service to have this discussion.

I found Google documents fairly intuitive, or at least similar to Microsoft Office (which I am used to). I had a bit of difficulty getting some of the tools to load (e.g. the picture upload), but I am not sure if this was the application or my computer being slow.

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Later on, I tried another application. I opted for Shelfari, which is another easy-to-use tool. I created a profile in moments; and began adding books I have read, am reading, or would like to read. I found out who else had read the same books as me, and what they thought of them. I even added a shelfari widget to my blog, which you are cordially invited to view. I am not sure if I will continue to use this tool; however, it would be a neat application to use in libraries as an informal book club or readers' advisory.