ISSUE 027 • September 15, 2009

Collaborating Online

Of the multitudes of benefits the Internet brings to education, each arguably as revolutionary as the next, one category that thankfully has taken a major foothold in adoption and implementation of late is online collaboration, offering tools and services that, for our purposes, let students and teachers communicate, interact, share, work, and learn together online...without needing it all to be in the same physical location.

Even better: The number of free online collaboration tools and services, truly slick and useful ones of immense value value to students and educators, has zoomed up accordingly. So much so that as I scour the Net for free educational resources, bumping into them being mentioned or recommended somewhere is practically a given. Good for us!

Here's a mini-directory of five I think you'll find particularly useful. There's a lot of duplication and overlapping of features and functionality among the various resources in this category, so I've left out a bunch of good ones mainly in an effort to try and list down those that are unique and/or specialized in one way or another. Enjoy!

Mini-Directory of Free Online Collaboration Tools & Services

EditGrid - Online spreadsheets! If your subject is more suitably organized in a spreadsheet format, this is the service to try.

Edmodo - You've probably heard of Twitter, if not already familiar with the simple yet powerful microblogging tools. Well, Edmodo is like your own little Twitter, and more importantly, a private one you and your students can use to communicate online.

Palbee - This free online service lets you easily set up online video meetings with your students and even record presentations to share.

Stixy - Online whiteboard or bulletin board; if your material and sharing needs are more suitable for this kind of work space, here you go.

Vyew - Always on "anytime" Web conferencing is what this freebie service provides. Definitely worth trying for real-time instruction online.