Tales from the Web 2.0 Zone: Document Collaboration

Google Docs is one of a number of web 2.0 sites that I don’t know how I managed to live without. It is, as its name implies, another wonderful Google service for creating, editing, managing, and—drum roll—collaborating on text documents and spreadsheets. Tested as Writely, Google has now opened the doors to all new registrations, no longer requiring a gmail--yes, you guessed it, Google’s online mail service--account. As with all new things Google, I quickly signed up and started to migrate to web-based word processing. Although not without some problems for the unwary or uninitiated, the service is all that it should be and more.

Not being the cautious type, I immediately wrote a memo on the site. Clicking “New” quite impressively opened a blank text area with buttons to click for all the usual format options: bold, regular, italic fonts, justification buttons, and bulleting options, along with a menu for insertions and file saving options. Looks easy enough for even the most fumbling Luddite. Even better, Google saves the revision history of all documents. Just for “googles,” I saved that first document and reopened it just yesterday, making a few minor changes. When I tried out the “Revisions” menu, sure enough I was given a document that had all those changes highlighted. There’s even an option to compare versions of the document, although you’re limited to two at a time. And saving documents? Google provides options to save in the following formats: html, rtf, Word, Open Office, and pdf. That’s right—you no longer need Adobe’s software to create a pdf file. (Of course, you’ll still want to hold on to the free Adobe Reader to read the darn thing.) “Wow,” I sighed, “this is way cool.”

Even better, however, is the ability to collaborate on documents. The “Collaboration” menu item brings up a dialog box in which you type in the e-mail addresses of those whom you wish to have access to the document. Google will then send invitations to those people, complete with a link to the document itself (that way, no one need have access to your other documents on the site).¹ My neurons started a fireworks display at this one! Imagine my students being able to work collaboratively on a document or my being able to mark up or make changes to a student’s text with all the suggestions and changes shown in the Revision history. Yes, I know about Word’s Track Changes feature, and I do love it, but I also know that it is one of the most frequent causes of document corruption. While not as colorful, Google’s version of revision tracking seems much more stable and intuitive. (If you’ve ever tried a document compare in Word, you’ll know exactly what I mean, and if you haven’t—don’t.) At this point I’m almost moaning “awesome.”

I plan to have my students use Google Docs next semester to work on their collaborative project. As always when trying out a new technology, I plan to go very slowly; we’ll try this for one assignment only and, as with most assignments, they will keep a log or write a few journal entries about their experience using it. But I’m stoked! Wish me luck, and I’ll keep you posted on the outcome in future “Tales.”²

¹The only “Googlitch,” if you can even call it that, is that you must make sure the people you invite already have an account at Google Docs.

²You know it—this entire post was created and submitted using Google Docs.

Category: Web_