Quest 11 - Online Apps!

The availability and use of online productivity web-based applications (think word processing and spreadsheets) has exploded over the past few years and for good reasons! These powerful applications provide users with the ability to create and share documents over the Internet without the needing to use installed desktop applications. Some experts speculate that this emerging trend may mean the death of Microsoft Office and other software-based productivity tools, while others think web-based applications have their place, but not in the office. No matter which side of the office suite platform you side with, on this both sides seem to agree: web-based apps have their place.

One large benefit to web-based applications is that they eliminate the need to worry about different software versions or file types as you email documents or move from PC to PC. Another bonus is that they easy accommodate collaboration by allowing multiple users to edit the same file (with versioning so you can see who made what change when) and they provide users the ability to easily save and convert documents as multiple file types (including HTML and PDF). You can even use many of these tools, such as Zoho Writer and Google Docs* to author and publish posts to your blog. It’s this type of integration with other Web 2.0 tools that help make web-based apps so appealing.

For this Discovery Exercise, participants are asked to take a look at a web-based word processing tool, create a simple document and then write about your discoveries in your blog. Of course, if you're up to a challenge, you might even export your document as an HTML file or publish it through Zoho to your blog. With Zoho and other web-based applications, the possibilities are endless!


Discovery Resources

Here's a short list of web-based productivity applications – Note: This list was written in ZohoWriter and exported as HTML.

Discovery Exercise

1. Create a free account for yourself in Zoho Writer or another online app from the list of web-based productivity applications. (If you already use Zoho or Google Docs, you can use that account if you want.)



2. Explore the site and create a test document or two so you can try out its features.



3. Create a blog post about your discoveries!

Optional: If you're up for the challenge, try using Zoho’s "publish" options to post to your blog.



* Note: Google Docs used to be called Writely. Google bought Writely and relaunched it as Google Docs about a year ago.



BTW: Here’s a document (viewable as a webpage) written by Helene Blowers from PLCMC describing her favorite Zoho features. Take a look and see if you agree with her list if you like!