Google Docs...Wait, Google Docs, Sreadsheets and Presentations

Here's a little example about how quickly these Web 2.0 resources can change. Last year during our summer class our district IT Guru (or Assistant Director) Mike Porter showed off a great little resource called "Google Docs." He explained that it had started as an online program that is similar to Microsoft Word and other word processing programs. What makes it different is its ability to save your work online (so you can access it from anywhere) and its ability to allow you to share your documents among anyone that you invite so that the document can be shared and revised by a group of users online and in realtime (meaning you see the changes pretty much as they happen).
The change in this little resource offered by Google has been phenomenal to watch. Starting out as Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets (similar to Microsoft Excel) was quickly added. After our class had completed, Google added Google Presentations (similar to PowerPoint) to the suite.
To access these great free online tools you need a Google account (which is also free...you can't beat the price!).
You can set up and access a Google account by using any email account that you currently use. However, you may want to set up a free Gmail account if you want to have Gmail integrated into your Google services. We'll talk about the world of iGoogle and other Google services in our next post.
In the meantime to set up a Google account, go to http://www.google.com/, click on Sign in and then click on the "Create a new account now" link.
Enjoy your new Google account and we'll talk more about Google and the free services that are offered in our next post.

Technology at the Speed of Light

Welcome to our blog. This is our first posting on a blog we see as a place to share ideas and resources on the latest in technology. Often called "Web 2.0" these web tools are constantly evolving and changing from day to day. Keeping up with these resources can be a daunting task. While we realize we cannot keep up with all of these ever-changing technologies, when we come across something of interest we will post it here.