Online word processor

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Stephen Ransom on February 6, 2009 at 10:51am

Although blogs are not really considered word processors, a service like Edublogs allows you to create student accounts that you can manage as the teacher. They could still compose under the guise of blog posts and have the basic text editing functions of a word processor. And as a bonus, they would be able to share them via their blogs and have peer/parent commentary enabled for feedback.

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Permalink Reply by Eric on February 6, 2009 at 12:37pm

Get a moodle site started!
Moodle is a free and open source e-learning software platform. Moodle is designed to help educators create online courses with opportunities for rich interaction.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Pass on February 6, 2009 at 5:05pm

What about Google Docs?

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Permalink Reply by Christopher Lister on February 6, 2009 at 5:16pm

Hi Andrew,

I would need to create 28 gmail accounts in order to have my class work online. I would like one account that enables me to create sub-accounts.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Ransom on February 6, 2009 at 5:34pm

That's why I think using Edublogs to create student users would be easiest:
http://edublogs.org/eduvideos/251/users.swf (blog & user creator section of the video)

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Permalink Reply by Christopher Lister on February 6, 2009 at 5:48pm

Hi Stephen,

I took a quick look at Edublogs, and for the most part I liked it. However, when it came to creating accounts for my students I noticed it was a premium service I'd have to pay for. I was looking for a cost free option.

Cheers

Christopher

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Ransom on February 6, 2009 at 5:51pm

Argggh... it used to be free. I forgot that a few months ago they removed all of the goodies and began charging a subscription fee for all of the good stuff. Sorry.

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Permalink Reply by Tim on February 6, 2009 at 6:13pm

I was recently checking out online word processors, though I wanted the possibility for real-time collaboration among 2-3 students (HS).

I don't know if whiteboard's will fit the bill. Like Zoho, the typist still types in a text box, but Skrbl and Scribblar both allow for real-time collaboration (or something close), if you want multiple parties to be typing on the same page at the same time. Both sites set up unique urls, Skrbl without having to register;Scribblar requires a simple registration of a username but no email, if I remember correctly. Others, including teacher, could be invited to join the site.

I have no experience with Just2easy--http://www.j2e.com/ -- but I think I read that a teacher can set up student accounts but I think there is a cost for this option.

Tim

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 6, 2009 at 6:17pm

Our classroom blog has individual blogs (4-6th) with my blog on the front page. It's not a word processor but it is certainly easy to administer since Recent Posts offers a quick glance of new content. It was created with Drupal, an open source software. Even though I'm not pro-wiki, you might be able to use a wiki with individual pages for each kiddo. There are some 'saving' issues but with monitoring that issue can be overcome. Moodle would also work.

The key is to have something that is easy to monitor--I have 50 bloggers so I need to know right away who wrote what and who uploaded what and who commented what to whom!

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Permalink Reply by Rob Letcher - www.21stcenturyed.com on February 6, 2009 at 8:15pm

Okay - it's not free, per se - you'd need a hosting service, but I pay less than $80 a year for min. I would grab some webspace with a hosting provider that offers free installation of Moodle then use the wiki tool there. My provider is www.siteground.com - Love them, great service and tons of free stuff (site builder, drupal, moodle, etc.)

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on February 7, 2009 at 3:26pm

Investing a $80-120 a year in a webhost account is probably the best thing I have ever done in terms of professional development and expanding my knowledge of web 2.0 and educational technology.

There are generally scores of interesting free and open source applications available to install with a few clicks and keystrokes: WordPress, Moodle, and much more.

Once you get past that point, learning to manually install software is a breeze and your choices expand to 1000s of options. However, at this point, there is no viable online free and open source word processor that I know of.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 7, 2009 at 4:00pm

I've mentioned this before but another consideration is intellectual property issues. About 10 years ago it dawned on me that original curriculum and workshop presentations stored on my districts' servers belonged to them. I sat down with my superintendent to discuss the intellectual property issue and after that meeting decided to move my stuff to a commerical host. Now the district serves my kid stuff and I serve my own stuff.

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