I'm a GoogleDocs girl, so I had high hopes for Zoho. Using Zoho Writer, however, was problematic from the start. Strike one, it didn't run on Safari, so I had to switch browsers.
I liked that I didn't have to create a new account, but could use my Google account. Score one for Zoho.
Creating a test document looked like it would be a snap. The menus were intuitive and clean. Making changes, however, didn't go well. If, for example, I changed a font more than once, only the first change would take. I tried this many different ways, always with the same problematic result with formating. Strike Two.
Strike three came when the Zoho kept freezing up on me. Regardless of how well it was suppose to work, I don't have the time or the patience for problematic service. Maybe it was Firefox, maybe it was Zoho. I only know that it didn't work well for me. With that, I returned to GoogleDocs and quickly created a couple of documents to post on a new blog that I'm working on, blog home 4 room two (http://maggie-blogroom2.blogspot.com/).
One of the Curriculum Connections suggests using GoogleDocs for a class assignment; it is the single application that my students use for writing. I love the flexibility that the product offers. Kids can work on documents at school and at home, conferencing is flexible, and there is a retrievable history of every single revision! One of the realities of the classroom today, especially with class sizes getting larger, is that there isn't time to conference in a meaningful way with every students. With GoogleDocs, I can review work on a more flexible schedule and offer comments that can be discussed quickly in class, or even during off hours; one of my favorite things is to be editing a document simultaneously with a student at 8 p.m. -- it quickly turns into an impromptu conference, and is akin to the way people collaborate in the real world!
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