Week Eight/Lesson #16: Intro to Web-Based Applications

The lesson for this week instructed us to browse through the blog posts on UCD Library 2 go, read bout the different applications highlighted for students by the librarians who maintain this blog, and then blog about our reactions, specifically about interesting applications or applications that our students might find useful.

All of this is definitely interesting, especially seeing posts about applications that are used by people I know and realizing that these types of applications are much more a part of our lives (read MY LIFE) than I thought.

As for which applications EKU students might find useful, I've seen students (geography students, maybe?) use Google Earth to create a better mental image of the terrain on a flat map of some far away place that they could not possibly visit. Then again, maybe they are just curious and are not using it for any educational purpose. My husband used Google Earth recently to see just how close a hotel in Colorado was to the interstate.

Google's free software pack, with its promise of some level of Norton Security Scan and Spyware Doctor Starter Edition, is intriguing, although I wonder what level of protection is provided. Also, StarOffice, zoho, Google Docs, thinkfree and other free Microsoft Office alternatives might go over well with students who cannot afford the $70 Microsoft Office Pro offered through the EKU Computer Store (yes, I know it is a major discount, but still...some of these students don't have an extra $70 dollars), or those who just want to "stick it to the Microsoft man."

Any application that includes citation formatting is usually a hit with our students, especially when they are being asked to cite in several different styles across disciplines, so free Open Source software such as Zotero could be helpful.

I think the very fact that I personally know students (my sister uses a free Open Source word processing application...I can't remember which) who are using these applications says something about the benefits of being aware of such web applications if you work in higher education, whether in the library or elsewhere.