Technology Tip Number 168
How About Onlone Programs?

Here's an idea.  How about we just forget about all the Microsoft programs like Word and Excel and even PowerPoint and just rely on free online programs that do pretty much the same thing? 

As more and more people get high speed connections to the internet it's becoming possible for people to use complex software right through the internet. Normally you would install a program like Word onto your computer and save your work on that individual computer. Online programs make it possible for you to log onto the internet, go to a website that offers a word processing program and use it.  Then you just save your work to a computer on the internet. The advantage of using an online word processor is that you can access the files you make online from anywhere in the world, as long as you can find a high speed internet connection.

Why should teachers and other professionals know about this? Soon your students and kids are going to figure out that they can log onto one of these free online word processors and use them instead of using Word. They will then be able to access their saved files through the internet instead of using a disk or USB/flash drive. 

Below I have listed some of the free online word processors that are out there:

 

ajaxwrite.com	thinkfree.com
docs.google.com	zohowriter.com

 PRACTICE ACTIVITY:  Check out at least one of these online word processing programs sometime today.  If you have routine access to a high speed internet connection you might even want to consider trying one of these free services out for a little while.

TO KEEP ON LEARNING:  To find out more about online word processors try searching the internet for:

Online Word Processors
Free Word Processors
Free Document Editors

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