Exploring Web-based Applications: Zoho Sheet

• Describe your experience as a user of the application. What functions did you like and what functions did you find frustrating? Why?

I chose to review Zoho Sheet more many reasons.  I teach Computer Applications and we teach students Microsoft Office. I wanted to see how similar Zoho was to Office.   I found Zoho Sheet very familiar and easy to use.  If you are familiar with the layout of Microsoft Office Excel 2003 then you will have an easy transition.   The icons are similar to Excel and I had no trouble guessing what icons did what. However there are some drawbacks to using Zoho that Offices uses are used to.

Zoho is Excel at a basic level.  A lot of the advanced functions are not there.  One big thing I noticed missing was the print fuctionallity. Students have a hard time visualizing what their Excel document will look like when it is printed.  I think this comes from using Microsoft Word and what you see is what you get.  In Excel you have lots of options on how you would like the document printed.  I would like the ability to add a header and footer, center horizontaly and verticaly and have the option of printing it in diffrent layouts.  I found this missing and a big drawback. One way around this would be to use this if you were using a computer that did not have Excel.  Sheet has the ability to save as an Excel document.  You could then save it using Zoho as an excel document and them open it with Excel when you get to a computer with Excel to have these printing abilities.

Think about its application in the classroom

• What knowledge or skills would students need to use the software?

Users who have basic Microsoft Office Excel knowledge would not have any trouble using this applications.  Students would need some instruction on how to use this program before they were giving an assignment.

• How can you share the products you create with this application

In Zoho is a share button.  This allows you to invite participants via email address.  You can also communicate in other ways.  You have the ability to email all the users at once to notify them of any changes or important information.  You can also chat with members live inside the document that you are working on. This allows for collaboration outside of school.

• How could you see the application being used to teach a particular subject matter?

I could  see this used in a Computer Applications class as an alternative to Excel.  It could also be used in Math and sciences classes.  The real benefit is the ability to collaborate on documents without having to email the document to everyone and then take everyone's additions and add it to one document.

• What are some things a teacher could do to help students collaborate using this application?

The teacher would have to have the ability to teach them the application and also show them a guided example in class on how to collaborate using Zoho.

• What sort of organization or managerial considerations will a teacher have to take into account?

Teacher would first have to learn how to use the application.  The teacher would then have to decide how to incorporate the application in their class.  This would also determine how to organize students.  Teacher would have to have students sign up for Zoho accounts.