Google, Google everywhere

Having used Google Docs in a previous incarnation, and being driven almost wild by its idiosyncracies, I was not best pleased when I first spied the subject of Thing 19. However, now that I'm not having to edit a Google Document at the same time as a colleague, I can see that it's a very useful application.

The word-processing elements are easy to use and look very familiar, whilst the Google Docs main page is easy on the eye and intuitive. I chose a William Morris quote ('If a chap can't compose an epic poem whilst he's weaving tapestry he had better shut up') which I displayed in a number of fonts, colours, and sizes.

In my library, since the computers are on a network, Google Docs is probably slightly redundant, but if I wanted to take my work home with me the application would be useful.

Students, however, could really benefit from Google Docs. We're often presented with a memory stick which a student desperately wants to use to save a document from the internet. For security reasons, we don't allow access to USB ports on our SOLO machines, but anyone using them can also get access to Google, and thus Google Docs.