I discussed the comprehensive office and organizational website, Zoho.com, in my last blog posting. After looking at Zoho.com, and talking about it with a colleague, it seems to me that one of the more valuable skills that university students need to be exposed to is working collaboratively with other people.
Unfortunately, this is also one of the more difficult skills to teach! The most common complaint of "group assignments" is that the share of work is not evenly distributed among group members. Well, what if we structured our classes using "groupware"? Personally, I think this has potential, and I may going to give it a shot in one of my classes this Fall semester -- though I have not yet decided which product to use. If anyone has experience doing this in the classroom, I am open to recommendations.
Zoho Virtual Office
Zoho.com has Zoho Virtual Office, which is a "web-based collaboration groupware"
that includes an Email Client (collaborators can email each other within ZVO), a Virtual Drive for storing shared Documents, a Calendar with Task assigning and setting capabilities, group Chat and IM capability, and shared a Contact list. It is free for up to 10 users, and includes a .exe file that one user must install on a computer that will act as the Zoho server (this can be any desktop PC). The install file works on Windows 2000 and XP and some versions of Linux, but not Mac or older Windows. ZVO costs $295 a year for 25 users.
Basecamp
Probably the best known groupware, however, is that produced by 37Signals.com's Basecamp. Basecamp basically has several tools to facilitate collaborative work: a Discussion Board; a shared To Do list, with due dates, so everyone knows who needs to do what; a File Sharing capability; Time Tracking for each group member; and a Milestones calendar. The Milestone calendar is and alternative To Do list that is structured more like a traditional project management program, with each task shown to span a set number of days in the calendar. The Time Tracking could be useful for tracking student efforts, however, each person enters their own information, so there could be some manipulation of reality here. Also included is Writeboard, an wiki for shared writing. (See my previous comments on Writeboard.)
The Free Version of Basecamp allows one project and does not include File Sharing and the Time Tracker. $12/month gives you 100mb of file sharing and 3 projects. Basecamp does not require any install files and works on both PCs and MACs.
activeCollab
activeCollab is a web-like, open source collaboration and project management tool. It is in alpha (version 0.6) and the website mostly consists of a discussion of desired features, so I am not sure just what is currently available. It is 100% free, but must be installed on your server (using PHP5 and MySQL). As an open source product, activeCollab has a lot of potential, but I would not recommend trying this until it is at least in beta.
!! NEW !! - Teamwork Live
A day after I posted my comments on Zoho Virtual Office and Basecamp, I got an email suggesting that I check out Teamwork Live. This appears to be a simple and straight forward project collaboration tool. It is entirely web-based, with a focus on communication (discussion borad and emailing), file sharing (uploading, searching and online editing/wiki), and assigning and tracking tasks and activities (calendar, a who has done what listing, alerts). The who has done what listing could be useful for grading student work in a project setting.
Teamwork Live lacks some of the bells and whistles of ZVO and Basecamp, but it may also be the easiest to use. And it appears to offer the best deal for struggling teachers -- the free version includes 5mb of file space, is limited to one team, compresses image files, and includes advertisements. $10/month removes the ads and image compression, allows 100mb of file storage, and an unlimited number of teas/projects.
!! NEW !! - ProjectSpaces
ProjectSpaces from Forum One Communications is yet another new project management website, which I just saw listed on eHub! A quick look at the website shows that it has much in common with Teamwork Live - file sharing and online editing, calendar and tasking, and communication with email, discussions, and announcements. There is no free version, and the starting price is $99/month (ouch!) for one project, 500mb file storage, and unlimited members.=================================================
From 37Signals.com:
Basecamp turns project management and collaboration on its head. Instead of Gantt charts, fancy graphs, and stats-heavy spreadsheets, Basecamp offers message boards, to-do lists, simple scheduling, collaborative writing, and file sharing. Tens of thousands agree it's a better way. Farhad Manjoo of Salon.com said “Basecamp represents the future of software on the Web.” Here's what other people think about Basecamp.
Campfire brings simple group chat to the business setting. Conventional instant messaging is great for quick 1-on-1 chats, but it's miserable for 3 or oror 7 or 15+ people at once. Campfire solves that problem and plenty more. Discover why Campfire is better for group chat than conventional instant messaging and how you can use Campfire in your business. Dick Costolo of Feedburner said, “Once you start using Campfire you won't remember how you got by without it. There's no better tool for business instant messaging.
Backpack is the alternative to those confusing, complex, “organize your life in 25 simple steps” personal information managers. Backpack's simple take on pages, notes, to-dos, and cellphone/email-based reminders is a novel idea in a product category that suffers from status-quo-itis. Backpack is so flexible you'll use it for everything. David Pogue of the New York Times said, “Backpack is a cool organization tool. How very cool," and Thomas Weber of the Wall Street Journal said it's the best product in its class.
Writeboard lets you write, share, revise, and compare text solo or with others. It's the refreshing alternative to bloated word processors that are overkill for 95% of what you write. John Gruber of Daring Fireball said, “Writeboard might be the clearest, simplest web application I've ever seen.” Web-guru Jeffrey Zeldman said, “The brilliant minds at 37signals have done it again.
Ta-da List keeps all your to-do lists together and organized online. Keep the lists to yourself or share them with others for easy collaboration. There's no easier way to get things done. Over 1,000,000 to-do items have been created so far. USA Today awarded Ta-da List with a “Hot Site of the Day” award and people are using it right now to keep track of their favorite movies, grocery lists, people they need to call back, and plenty more.
