Share and share alike

We are told that cloud computing is the future and you can see the pros of being able to access your documents whenever or wherever you are.  But of course there are negatives as well to do with security and permanence (and interestingly reading one of the help guides on Google docs it did say that a document may have a private setting but be visible on the web and you have to change a different setting to prevent that). 




One of the big advantages to the Google docs type site is the ability to share documents and work in colloboration.  I have not used google docs much but I have used the equivalent on Yahoo (is it safe to mention that?) about 4 years ago.  I was doing a course and we had to do a group project creating a booking system for a hotel.  Our tutor set up a group for us on Yahoo which is still there!

This was great as we were doing the course by evening class and only met once a week.  This site enabled us to upload documents for others to view and edit.  It also allowed our tutor to make sure we were working!  There were chat and forum options as well if we had issues to iron out.  Having taken a look at Google docs I can see that it has the same advantages for group work.  It also has the benefit of being able to create items within it rather than just uploading.  This seems very useful and I have tried creating a form to collect completely useless information from anyone who wants to give it a go here.

I would definitely use Google docs (or equivalents) when working on group projects but, of course, only if all the team is willing to sign up to Google!  I am on a committee where this was not possible and so then you are back to emails and attachments.