I was scheduled to participate on a Web 2.0 in education panel discussion this past Thursday. Allan was to be managing the session, but he got stuck in the airport coming back from the ANGEL user conference. So Thursday morning I got together with Chris Millet, another scheduled panelist, and we began to work out what we were going to do for the ninety minute session. I started a document in Google Docs and shared it with Millet. We started brainstorming ideas and capturing them on the doc. Soon we dragged another colleague, Tim Perry, into the mix. Each of us sat around the table fleshing out the outline more and more. I have to say, this was probably the best collaborative editing experience I have ever had. By brainstorming face to face while capturing it simultaneously, we had a usable document in about 60 minutes.
We printed out a copy for each of us to use as a guide during our discussion. I think the session went pretty well. I don't think it would have been possible without Google Docs or a similar tool.
This is a great example of how these new tools can be used to support work flow. It is funny that this scenario mirrors my students' usage to a T. They would all fire up Google Docs in teams at different machines and co-author a document. Very cool.