After his divorce, Gregg La Montagne found it hard to help his 15-year-old daughter with her schoolwork since she lives in another state. So for her Spanish class recently, La Montagne told her to write her assignment in an online word-processing application made by Google Inc.
La Montagne, a sales manager in Austin, Texas, then accessed his daughter’s homework online, using the same software through his Web browser at home. A native Spanish speaker, La Montagne was then able to suggest grammar changes, which he typed in at the bottom of the paper. His daughter, who was online at the same time, was able to see her father’s notes almost instantaneously as her screen refreshed, and then in turn correct the document for him to see.
“It makes it easier to participate,” says La Montagne. “It’s not the same as being with her, but it’s at least a step in that direction.”
La Montagne is one of a growing number of parents now using Web-based applications to review and aid their children’s educational work. Google Docs &Spreadsheets, which La Montagne used, provides word processing and spreadsheets that a consumer can access using just a Web browser.
Such applications are part of a broad move toward so-called hosted Web applications, where software and documents are accessed over the Internet rather than stored on your hard drive. (In the case of Google Docs, for instance, the files are stored with Google.) Many of these applications are free and allow multiple users to access and edit documents simultaneously. Businesses are already shifting some key operations, such as sales and accounting systems, to Web-based applications, citing lower costs and fewer hassles.
Now some families are seeing the benefits of hosted applications in their own way. Free Web-based calendar programs from Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. allow busy family members to share schedules online and notify each other of future events. Parents and teachers are using blogs and collaborative Web sites called wikis with kids. And schools are sharing academic data with parents via password-protected online programs.
Some families are even using Web-based applications targeted mainly at small- and home-office users, such as AdventNet Inc.’s Zoho.com, a majority free system that offers things like word processing and online presentations. Raju Vegesna, spokesman for Zoho.com, says Zoho is seeing an increasing number of students use its word processor. Today, roughly 30 percent, or 100,000, of its users are students, he says.
All of this is part of a larger trend of using the Internet as school aid. Indeed, homework has become the top reason that teenagers are using the Internet on a monthly basis, according to a November 2006 JupiterResearch LLC study of 2,091 teens in the U.S., ages 13 to 17. Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook ranked fifth in the survey.
One concern with this type of close online collaboration is the temptation to help kids too much with their homework. Parents say they must guard against that, because it would be so easy to simply go in and make changes themselves.
During a visit to Utah earlier this year, Kate Hargadon, a Sacramento, Calif., student, didn’t have her computer with her but had an essay due for a history competition in her home state. Having already written a draft on paper, the 14-year-old used her uncle’s computer to type out the draft in a Google document. She then worked on it with her father back in Sacramento, who was logged into Google Docs at the same time.
Steve Hargadon, an educational consultant and Kate’s father, says he was cautious not to help his daughter too much. “It wasn’t my job to do it for her, but to help make sure it was getting done,” he says.
He pointed out places in the essay where his daughter could rework the grammar, and she fixed them herself. “It’s really convenient to use when you aren’t right next to him and in a different state,” says Kate Hargadon, who says she now regularly uses Google Docs for schoolwork.
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