7 Free Web Apps to Help You Collaborate for Group Projects
At one time or another, you probably collaborated with classmates in school. If you work in a business, you’ve been a part of team effort to get an important project. Even this mainstay of work and school life has been affected by the web. Now it is possible to collaborate on group projects even if you’re alone in front of your desktop computer or using your iPhone on the go. This is made easier by using free web apps.
To get some idea about what this new frontier of web working involves, this post will briefly examine 7 free web apps to help you collaborate for group projects. Whatever help you need, it is certain that you will find some application that will meet your needs.
Here they are:
1. Stixy – This flexible, online bulletin/drawing board is a very simple application. It serves as a whiteboard for conducting discussion and research together with other authorized users. One interesting features is Stixy’s ability to mock up or wireframe web pages. It can then be modified or tweaked. Members of the collaborative team would then be able to post notes on every phase of the project.
2. Project2Manage – with Project2Manage, you have free, hosted application that come with a variety of features for collaboration and project management. Accessibility to project details can be customized. Different roles can be established complete with permissions that limit what individual team members are allowed to view. Project goals may be posted as milestones for all to see.
3. Protonotes – This application is a free annotation widget that can be used for HTML prototypes. To make it work, you need a JavaScript present in the webpage. Some of Protonotes’ features include usability testing, design critiquing, and quality-assurance testing. As a member of the collaboration, you are notified when other members post new notes. Additionally, you will be able to subscribe to the team’s notes RSS feed. Data can be exported as CSV files so they can be viewed as spreadsheets.
4. Skype – If you’ve worked online for any significant period of time, you probably know a least a little about Skype or you may be intimately familiar with this popular VoIP application. It lets you talk on the telephone via the internet. Its built in chat program, video conferencing features, and file sharing are already a top-ranked collaborative tool.
5. Thinkature – This web app is another tool developed specifically to aid online collaboration. Once you’ve logged on you can access a workspace that allows you to visual communicated via chat, drawing, or by pulling in content from the internet to get the point across clearly. The flexibility of Thinkature allows for a variety of uses an approach to group project collaboration.
6. Google Docs – Naturally, everyone has heard about Google Apps at this point. Google Docs is its premiere application for collaboration. Users are able to share documents and spreadsheets and collaborate with team members or clients in real-time. Since it is a browser-based application, it doesn’t take much to get it set up and running. Docs like other apps allows you to store your work online so it is basically available anywhere you can get an internet connection.
7. Zimbra – Zimbra has been called the leader in open source, Web 2.0 collaboration and messaging software. They provide solutions to those users that need strong solutions and tools to get jobs done. Zimbra’s platform is flexible and fully compatible with different file types and operating systems. It provides many of the common features of collaborative web apps. You can communicate with team members, send messages on project boards, and share files as well.
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