Online+Collaboration+and+Screen+Sharing

Online collaboration and screen sharing tools allow students to be able to work on the same documents and projects online without being in the same location. As we were looking through the different options, we followed the following rubic to help us decided which would meet our student's needs best. (Online Collaboration and Screen Sharing Rubric) WE found Wiggio suit our classroom needs the best. The rest of the tools that we evaluated we disqualified for various reasons that we explain based on the rubric.

=**Wiggio**= Excellent tool for online collaboration and screen sharing. Allow you to add as many groups as you want, and you can create subgroups. It is completely free and it requires the users to create an account using email address, which lets you know who is working on what. It provides with different ways to contact the users when needed (i.e. mail, chat, text to cell phone) so the students don't need to check it that often. It is very user friendly and no downloads are required. Some of the features it includes are sharing files, whiteboard/char room, polls creation, calendar with reminders, todo lists, holds virtual meetings and the ability to work on online documents and spreadsheets (similar to google docs). media type="youtube" key="7jcsXTu93CU" height="315" width="560"

=**Vyew**= Very similar to Wiggio, has the same features and tools. The problems with Vyew is that it only allows you to create groups of maximum 10 people.

=**Scribblar**= It is pretty much an online whiteboard. It requires a lot of direction from the teacher, the teacher has to create the groups and students can move from one group to another. It is not very good for independent collaboration, but might be great for teaching online or for an art class since it allows you to draw.

=**Twiddla**= There are fees to pay. There is a free version but it only allows you to participate in chat rooms and have meetings, no file sharing or online document creation is allowed.

=**[|Nicenet]**= Not user friendly at all, difficult to use as a teacher. More directed to College or University level classes.

=**Collanos**= Software download required. Has a lot of features but it doesn't look user friendly at all, it looks very complicated. =**TeamLab**= Directed more to business than to school. Talks about office setup and community among employees. More like task-managing oriented. User friendly and a lot of features. No fees required and you need to sign up. media type="youtube" key="CU5qm_xiNck" height="315" width="560"