Have you ever been working collaboratively on a document, either with one other person or multiple people? Have you been frustrated looking through your computer or your email for the most recent version or even an older version that that has something you've since deleted? Worse yet, have you ever been looking for that file wondering if the most recent version is on my work computer, my laptop, my home computer, my email or any number of usb drives I have laying around - or even worse yet on someone else's computer. What about collaboration - sending a file around by email, everyone adds their comments and you have to try to put it all together - what a hassle. And who can stand to read documents with track changes turned on. Well there's a new class of applications called webware coming to the rescue!

Gordon: Mike - what is webware?

Webware is an online software application that trys to replicate the richness and responsiveness of a traditional desktop application. What's really made this even remotely possible is the widespread adoption of high-speed or broadband internet and a new architecture for the Web (Web 2.0 and AJAX - we'll talk about these more some other time). Google Docs & Spreadsheets is an example of webware - an online analogue of the ubiquitous Microsoft Office.

Gordon: I know we've been using Google Docs and Spreadsheets - can you give our audience an overview of how these applications function?

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a fairly full-featured online word processor and spreadsheet editor that enables you, your colleagues and your students to create, store and share documents and spreadsheets. It's this sharing - the collaboration - that's really exciting! Sharing enables you to decide who can access and edit documents, and even better, all changes are kept in a document revisions history. You can create documents from scratch or upload existing documents and spreadsheets. Other than a web browser and a network connection, there's no software required, and all your documents are stored safely online and accessible from any network-connected computer. Some of the neat features include being able to save documents to Word, spreadsheets to Excel and either (documents or spreadsheets) to HTML or PDF. The Spreadsheets even have a panel that allows collaborators to have a live chat regarding the spreadsheet. A particularly useful feature - AUTOSAVE - means you never have to remember to save your work!

How are people using it? Teachers are publishing announcements about upcoming assignments and monitoring student progress via the revision history. In the revision history, you can see clearly who contributed to what assignment and when; if a student says he or she worked on a given project for five hours, it will be documented (no more "dog ate my homework" excuses). Additionally, faculty are using GDS to keep track of grades, attendance, student projects and assignments. Students are using GDS to stay organized and work more effectively. Google Docs & Spreadsheets helps promote group work and editing skills, and encourages multiple revisions and peer editing. Students can go online to collaborate with other students, teachers, parents, relatives and tutors, and enter updates anytime from anywhere. And through their revisions history, kids can check how they've revised a document and who has helped. Not to be outdone, Google spreadsheets allows students to track their grades, assignments, semester goals, baseball statistics, car expenses, or anything else that interests them.  

Gordon: Can you give us some more examples of how these can be used?

Consider the example of a high school English and journalism te