Introduction

We have covered what seem to be the most popular participatory web applications for educational settings (e.g., Richardson, 2006). However, those who develop tools and services for the web are continually exploring new ground. There are so many online tools and services and the options seem to expand daily. If this were a hard copy resource and we had to worry about bringing our project in under budget, we would probably stop at this point.

There is one final collection of tools/services we would like to address. We regard this collection as a little more "experimental", but as you will see shortly this is only because of the frequency of educational use and not because the tools/services are unfamiliar. We have also saved this collection until last because the "participatory" opportunities of this collection are a little less obvious.

What should we call the collection we will discuss?

Here are some options - web application, online application, browser application.

There is no perfect choice and we risk misrepresentation no matter which of these terms we select. Our problem is that we have a narrow collection of services/tools in mind and the terms we have listed are general in scope.

Perhaps we should just attempt to communicate as concretely as possible what we have in mind and then assign a working definition.

Here goes. Those of us who made heavy use of computers before the Internet learned to use specialized software applications that were stored on a computer we owned or that was made available to us in a laboratory.

• We wrote with word processing programs.


• We modified images with image editing (paint) programs.


• We manipulated numerical data with spreadsheet programs.


• We prepared and delivered presentations with software programs suited to such purposes.

The important insight here is that the software programs required to perform these tasks and the data files storing the partial or completed products resulting from the use of these programs were typically stored on a specific computer. The home for these applications/files was on an identifiable personal computer and it has been common to refer to this collection as desktop applications.

In contrast, today many of these same applications/services are available as Internet-based applications. In other words, word processing, image editing, spreadsheet calculations, etc. can be performed online. The programs that do the work and the files that result are housed on servers rather than on a specific computer you own or use. Your computer (client) requires only a modern browser in order to take advantage of a wide range of tools/services. Actually, you are not required to use the same client computer, you can move from computer to computer (home to office, one lab computer to another) and continue your work on the same project.

We have decided to use the term browser applications to refer to the online equivalent of what we used to call desktop applications.

We recognize that all of the participatory web applications/services we describe are technically browser applications (also Internet applications and online applications). We also recognize that our description of how browser applications work with servers glosses over many details and ignores variations. Please accept our working definition of browser applications as the online equivalent of common desktop applications. If you are interested in additional information about client/server applications/services, we offer more detail (still incomplete and limited by our understanding of what quickly becomes a very technical subject) as a separate document.

Why might teaches be interested in browser applications?

We assume that you are familiar with most of the desktop applications we mention, and even if you have not already experienced them, that you can imagine similar applications running within a web browser. A relevant question then is why the distinction between desktop applications and browser applications matters? You probably already own or have access to word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, etc. programs. Why might you and/or your students use redundant applications that you access in a little different manner?

Here are some arguments for why the use of browser applications may be worth considering.

1. Cost: Browser applications are presently available at no cost. We say "presently" because it somewhat defies logic that useful tools and services requiring resources of a provider can be made available at no cost to users. In addition to the cost of the application software, there may be other resource advantages. It may be possible to reduce hardware commitments to data storage and backup when these services are provided off-site. Internet access would be a commitment needed for browser-based applications that would not necessarily be required on all computers running desktop applications.


2. Multi-location, multi-machine access, multi-platform: The content created by browser applications lives online (on servers). The advantage of having content you create on a remote server is that you can reach and modify this content from any Internet-connected computer. "Any" in this case means that the operating system of the computer does not matter, nor do you have to work from the same machine.  In the most typical K-12 situation where students use equipment provided by the school and perhaps a personal computer from home, being able to access content in this way offers great convenience and efficiency. An additional benefit of this approach is file backup. Online providers take data backup much more seriously than individual users because their reputation depends on the dependability of their service. In addition, providers are likely to have much more sophisticated and redundant systems.


3. Current software: The computer user does not have to worry about the  "version" of desktop software available on his/her computer. The software doing the work is either running on the server or constantly downloaded from the server. Software developers can thus constantly update a browser application without having to worry about how to get improvements to users.


4. Sharing: While significant benefits, the arguments for browser applications listed to this point have little to do with our theme of the participatory web. Given our theme, the most significant advantages of browser applications are that many of these applications offer "shared authoring" and "content distribution". Built into the service/tool is the capability to allow multiple individuals to work together in the generation of content and the capability to share products with others. Both collaboration and distribution capabilities include mechanisms for controlling access which is important in addressing the concerns of safety, privacy, and responsibility.

Google Docs - An Introduction

When we started this section, we did so realizing that we must severely limit the scope of the task we were setting for ourselves. There would simply be too many browser applications and the proportion of practicing or pre-service teachers interested in many of these applications would be limited. We also realize that we are pushing the boundaries of traditional participatory web applications by including browser applications and we must make an effort to remain focused. Frankly, at some point we need to stop adding new content and make certain we focus on keeping what we have written current. Any self-respecting editor would likely have reined us in many pages ago.

We have made the decision to focus on Google Docs. This collection includes word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications available in an active browser (online) environment and recently, also offline, still making use of a standard browser. This flexibility, in combination with the automatic synchronization of works in progress between the online and offline versions, offers great power in a free application. It also happens to be the example we have made most use of personally. There are other browser tools and we include links to some of these options at the conclusion of our discussion of each Google tool. A great thing about most participatory web tools is that there is no cost for exploring on your own.

We make no unique claims for Google Docs and we will make an attempt to offer some options as we present the individual Google Docs tools.

References:

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for the classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.