Thing 18: Online Productivity Tools

I have some experience using Google Docs--I was collaborating with a fellow preschool parent on a spreadsheet to keep track of books in the preschool's library. It is a great thing to be able to create documents and store them remotely, with access at any computer anywhere. What was very useful is that that document was available to several people and we all worked on it collaboratively. You can see who edited an item and when, add notes about any revisions, and so on. Very useful tool. Zoho has not only word processing tools available online, but also spreadsheets, document storage, and PowerPoint-like presentation tools. They aren't all free to use, but look like they could be very useful to small business owners and the like. One online tool we use all the time at our library is Google Calendar. We keep the master info staff list on the calendar so all staff members simply log into the library's Google email account and can check and edit staffing levels from any computer in the branch and also from home if need be.