What are they?

Online applications and productivity tools are web-based applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and personal calendars that allow users to create and share documents over the internet without the need for installed desktop applications. Some folks even speculate that these applications could one day replace Microsoft Office and other software-based productivity tools!

Advantages

Here are some advantages of using these tools:

• Easy: the obvious advantage is that you don’t need to download any software which makes these tools very easy to start using right away!
• Free: Many of these tools are free!
• Accessible: Availability of these tools on the internet means that you can access your files from any computer with an internet connection. This is especially advantageous if you need access to your files or your calendar from home or on the road!
• Collaboration: the huge advantage is that you can collaborate on documents with other people! This is great if you are working on a project or report. These programs even allow you to save different versions if you want to see the changes to the documents.
• Platform independent: You no longer need to worry about what version your software is and if it will work on your colleague’s computer which might be running a different version.
• Save as different file types: Need an HTML version of your document? These programs often convert or save in different file types such as PDF.
• Post to the web: Easily post files such as presentations or word processing documents to the web!
• Share: Easily share a file with others without having to worry about emailing as an attachment and exploding your colleague’s inbox. Simply send a URL so that s/he can view your file!

Examples

Here are some examples of these types of applications:

All-inclusive office productivity software

Zoho: Zoho includes a full range of applications such as spreadsheets, word processing, presentations, calendar, database, project management and more…all free and all online!

Google: Google offers a few applications such as Google Documents & Spreadsheets for word processing and spreadsheets, Google Calendar , and Google Page Creator for creating web pages. Word has it that they have just acquired presentation software and are in the midst of creating a full office productivity suite!

Thinkfree: Thinkfree, still in beta, offers free online word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software.

Goffice: For only .99 cents US/month, create word processing, spreadsheet and presentation files. Easily convert the word processing files to PDF format!

37Signals: These applications aren’t free but they indicate how a small business can host project management, customer relationship software and more cheaply and online.

Spreadsheets

NumSum: Create and share spreadsheets online!  Kiwi (your wiki) now has NumSum spreadsheets.

Databases

Lazybase: Easily create databases of content to share or collaborate with others.

Presentations

Spresent: Create presentations online as Flash programs and then share them with others. This is different from programs that allow you to share your presentations only (i.e. upload your PowerPoint files.) Examples of these types of applications are Slideburner (see an example) and Slideshare (see an example).

Activity for this week

For this week’s activity, you’ll learn how to use Google Documents and Spreadsheets; you’ll add to an existing document, create your own document and share your document on your blog. Here are the steps:

1. Go to: http://docs.google.com/
2. Log in with the login given in the email for this week. (library@mohawkcollege.ca plus the password)
3. In the right pane, you will see a document called Learning 2.0 - click this document to open it.
4. Add some text - write about one new thing you’ve learned about in the Spring into Learning 2.0 program. Don’t forget to add your initials!
5. Click the Save button in the top right corner.

Explore the features…

1. Click the Revisions tab to see all the revisions that have happened to this document.
2. Click the Insert tab. Note that you can insert images, tables, etc.

Create your own document…

1. Create a new document: click the New button in the top left and choose “document”.
2. Write whatever you want in your document and Save it.
3. Click the Publish tab.
4. Click the Publish button on the next screen that appears.
5. Copy the URL that you get and put it in your blog posting for this week.
6. Click Close Document.
7. Click Docs Home in the top right corner.
8. Log out.

One more thing…

1. For your blog posting this week, in addition to posting the URL for your Google document, please give one example of how you think libraries could use these online productivity tools.

Don’t forget - if you need any help, give me (Jenn) a buzz!