Thing 9 - Online Collaboration Tools

I have played with Google Docs for awhile, and am not sure if I prefer that, or Zoho writer. I like the idea of having teachers edit student documents right online using the comment tool. I will introduce this to the English teachers to see if they are willing to try it out. I opened two accounts, so I could see if the chatting feature worked, but didn't have much luck. I could see both of my "identities'" comments on one account, but not on the other. I'm not sure if that could be because I was on one computer. I will try to work on this with another staff member to see if we can get it to work.

The one concern that I have, is the seemingly easy ability to have someone else write your document for you. Not sure how to address this. Of course, kids can cheat any number of ways - not on the internet, so maybe my concern is unfounded.

I would like to see students using one of these programs for their papers, instead of using a word processing program at home, emailing it to themselves, and then printing it at school, since I have to unblock their email site each time they want to get their documents.