Online Word Processing and a Mini-Rant

I just posted my observations about Zoho Writer in the discussion board, so my apologies if this is a bit redundant, but I was really impressed.  A lot of the tools I've seen on the web that try to replace Office programs either completely fall short, or fill some weird little niche.  But Zoho Writer seems like something I could give to students, and they would probably be able to use it without any problems after about 10 minutes of playing around.  Because of that shallow learning curve, it's something I feel I could apply in my classroom very easily.

Using programs like Zoho Writer or Google Docs take care of some common classroom problems.  First of all, there are no compatibility issues.  So students can't (legitimately or "accidentally") save a file at home in a format that won't open at school.  Also, sharing between group members is easy.  They can collaborate on a project in real time, even if they aren't in the same room.  And if they are working on it at different times, it is easy to leave comment boxes in work someone else has done if it is something the group needs to discuss.

I mentioned in my post that my school is planning a project where groups are comprised of members from different classrooms.  To avoid redundancy I won't go into it again, but that seems like the most likely way I would have students collaborate.  I would like to have students working online together outside of school, but I always run into the problem of the 10% or so that don't have internet access.  Our principal has been very clear in her stance- "Go for it.  Why deprive 90% of the students because it won't work for 10%?"  But the realities of the situation are what get in the way for me.  Generally, those 10% that are without the home internet access are the 10% that I often worry about.  The 10% that probably don't need to be separated from the rest of the class and given an alternate assignment.  The 10% that really need technology instruction at school, because they don't get to wander the web and find tools like these at home.  And I realize that public libraries offer free internet access, but there are some kids for whom that just isn't going to happen, and it isn't their fault.  If technology becomes another thing that separates them from their peers, and reminds them how bad they've got it, when they could see technology as a way to reach out to the world, then we lose.