This is a new online collaboration tool I recently tested.  It has it’s unique advantages and disadvantages, and in some ways it works like Google Docs, but it provides a little more immediate traction.  No signing up or signing in required, no passwords, no downloading and installing software, just click one button and instantly you have a collaboration “pad” – an etherpad.  They offer a paid version and free version.

I used it to collaborate remotely with an associate before and during a conference call.  We used it as a scratch pad to write the rough draft of a document.  It worked like a charm!

Imagine the potentials for foreign/second language learning and teaching with this!

Here is the demo video from Etherpad.com: