digitalgoonies.com

http://etherpad.com

OK, so we all know and love Google Docs. As a matter of fact, that’s how Susan and I collaborate on our book outlines, planning sessions, workshop outlines and such. It does what it says- and for the most part what we need. Etherpad is so cool! When I say real-time collaboration, I mean that if you and I were on the same pad (the same URL) I would see exactly what you type when you type it!

So you talk about motivating kids to write together! This is the greatest thing ever! Imagine three students editing or revising a paragraph together… brainstorming… elaborating… writing! This will kick the dust off some of those boring lessons! And that’s not all…

Features

• Real time collaboration with no lag time
• Create your own URL for each pad (in the format www.etherpad.com/yourURL)
• Can import/export in various text formats (Word, PDF, HTML, RTF, etc.)
• Each user’s contribution is highlighted with a unique color
• Infinite number of revisions can be saved (and reverted)
• Built-in chat feature allows users on the same pad to communicate
• No accounts or logging in required (for the free, public version)
• No plug-ins required

Yeah, there are some downsides as well…

• Once a pad (a document) is created, it is present on the web forever
• The free version of EtherPad offers no security- anyone who knows the URL of the pad can easily access it, edit it, and chat with other users of the pad
• The highlight colors will not copy and paste into a word processor- this is limited to text only
• If a student clicks the “Clear Authorship Colors” button, all highlighting will be removed
• When the editor’s name is changed on a pad, this name is stored as a cookie on the machine- this means that the next person using EtherPad on that machine will have the name of the previous user as a default

Did I mention that this is FREE! Oh, and this is one of the websites featured in our upcoming Web 2.0 book!

Try the one I created for Digital Goonies: http://etherpad.com/digitalgoonies