Tips for Using Etherpad/PrimaryPad?

I'm gearing up to do my first collaborative writing assignment - group writing conclusions to an experiment. I know Etherpad is now OOS, but I found http://primarypad.com/ which has the same look and feel. http://piratepad.net/ is the same but I can't tell if it's going away with Etherpad?

I read a blog entry at Free Tech 4 Teachers about pre-populating a prompt: students will be in groups of 3-4 and each group needs its own pad. What are your tips, suggestions for making this first time use happy and effective?

Thanks!

Tags: collaborative, etherpad, piratepad, primarypad, writing

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Permalink Reply by Colleen Young on April 8, 2010 at 2:24pm

Jeremy, sorry am I being silly here - your link has lots of links - is this what you and your class were using?.

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Kaiser on April 8, 2010 at 2:30pm

Yes, that's the one.

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Permalink Reply by Colleen Young on April 8, 2010 at 2:32pm

Thank you Jeremy - and such a quick response!

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Permalink Reply by Jane Strohm on April 9, 2010 at 1:15pm

I had emailed the help at PiratePad to find out about viability. Aaron says none of the Etherpad clones will be shutting down when Etherpad.com does next week.

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Permalink Reply by Colleen Young on April 9, 2010 at 1:40pm

Thank you Jane, that's useful to know.

So many sites out there - one has to make a judgement about which will last!

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Kaiser on April 9, 2010 at 2:30pm

I just saw that Google bought etherpad, shut it down, and now started it back up under a new name. Typewith.me is the new etherpad. I think it looks exactly like the old etherpad.

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Permalink Reply by Colleen Young on April 9, 2010 at 2:42pm

So which one do we use Jeremy?
Is Typewith.me the one to go with? (Not PiratePad?)

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Kaiser on April 12, 2010 at 8:19am

I have been using Piratepad and it works well. I haven't used Typewith.me yet, but I am sure, since it is powered by Google, that it works quite well.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Yearout on April 12, 2010 at 11:16am

I don't think typewith.me is Google, as at the bottom it indicates it is hosted by Atlas Networks. As long as it works and is available, though, nothing wrong with it at all! I will be interested to see how Google incorporates it.

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Kaiser on April 13, 2010 at 9:55pm

Ok, here is another real cool collaborative app that I just found. Check out Twiddla. I think it is the best one I have seen yet because of all the extra functions like drawing and loading pics. I am excited to try this one out in the classroom.

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Permalink Reply by monika hardy on April 13, 2010 at 10:06pm

dang... don't show cool stuff that costs money... :)

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Permalink Reply by Colleen Young on April 14, 2010 at 12:26am

There is a free version, it depends what you want to do with it.

I like the look of Scribblar and have been playing with that. The links are all in this post on online whiteboards.