With the advent of social web and Internet perse, there is great opportunity for collaboration. When it comes to education, collaboration is key to learning. Working in a team/group today, you don't have to be physically present. There are various tools and services which can help you collaborate online with your group members or team mates.
In this post we will cover some great free tools for connecting, collaborating and sharing with others.These tools will help you with online conferencing, file sharing, collaborative writing and editing, private communication and desktop sharing.
1. Keep and Share
Keep and share allows you to have a calendar, word processor, file storage, photosharing and to-do list at one single place. It also allows you to share all the above tools with a group at the same time ensuring who see what and set exclusive permission for editing.
2. Spicebird
Spicebird provides integrated email, calendaring and instant messaging with intuitive user interface. It runs on Windows and Linux and can connect to any standards based email and calendar servers that support IMAP, POP.
3. Dropbox
Dropbox is a state of art sharing service which keeps all your stuff on the cloud and allows you to access them from anywhere using almost all sorts of devices and operating systems.
- Sync: Dropbox allows you to sync your files online and across your computers automatically.
- File Sharing: Allows simple file sharing with one click. Shared folders allow several people to collaborate on the same files.
- Online Backup: It backs up your file on the cloud and gives you a piece of mind
- Multiple device support: You can install and use dropbox using various devices, like PC, Mac, Linux or even mobile phones.
4. Google Docs
Google offers a complete office suit which is free for personal use. Google docs include:- Document
- Spreadsheet
- Presentation
- Form creator
- Drawing
5. MindMeister
MindMeister is an online mind mapping service which is free of cost and allows your to share and collaborate mind map creating and brainstorming. It offers real time brainstorming.
There are many more but these are the most popular collection of tools and software for online collaboration and sharing.
I agree internet is all about collaborating and sharing, you have great examples of tools that provide collaboration. On the same way, mind maps are useless unless other people give ideas and helping them to build that’s why I think they are a great example of groupware.
One example you presented, Mindmeister looks like a very interesting tool but has the downfall of the pricing; it cost if you want to create more than 3 maps…a similar alternative that I had used before is called Mind42.com.
Mind42.com is another mapping tool with a very user-friendly interface where you can manage and share your mind-maps for FREE, plus it has integrated the Google Talk gadget so you can chat while collaboration on your map I found this specially useful.