While I was preparing to talk about cloud computing at the MLTI Student Tech Team Conference, Zoho was busy making cloud computing even better. Zoho has announced on their blog that users of Google Docs can import documents into Zoho Writer. The directions for importation are posted below the “applications for education” portion of this blog entry.

Another new feature of Zoho Writer is the “equation editor.” The equation editor can be used in two ways. The simplest option is to use your mouse to select equation symbols from the equation editor pop-up window. The second option for those adept at using keyboard combinations is to type your equation directly into your documents.

Applications for Education
The new import option combined with the option to sign into Zoho with your Google or Yahoo account (announced earlier this month) make cloud computing an even better option for schools. The multiple sign-in options cuts down on the number of user names and passwords students have to remember. The sign-in options also allow students to easily toggle back and forth between Zoho and Google services. As I’ve mentioned before, some of my students really like this because they prefer Zoho Show over Google Presentation, but prefer Google Docs to Zoho Writer. Now, in their eyes, they get the best of both worlds. The new import option allows students and teachers to work collaboratively regardless of their cloud computing preferences.

The equation editor could be a great tool for having students work collaboratively to solve mathematics problems either in the classroom or out of the classroom. The new equation editor is very easy to use. I’m not a math teacher or a particularly adept at keyboard combination shortcuts, yet I still found the editor to be fantastic tool. Students could easily learn to write and edit equations on Zoho Writer.

Here are the directions, as written by Zoho, for importing Google Docs into Zoho Writer.

• Login to your Google Docs account & choose the documents that you need to export to Zoho
• Click on More actions -> Save as HTML (zipped) to your desktop
• In Zoho Writer, click on Import -> Import Google Docs, select the zipped file path and click Import
• All the Google Docs documents in the zip file will be imported into your Zoho Writer account & will be displayed in the left panel