Originally posted by j christopher stanger on January 10, 2019
Mobile collaboration is increasingly becoming part of our everyday work lives. But what does it really mean to ‘mobile collaborate’ and what tools are available to facilitate this collaboration?
“Mobile collaboration is the use of mobile devices and collaborative apps to allow geographically dispersed people to work together on endeavors ranging from small personal projects to high-profile enterprise teamwork” regardless of locations and time zones (Rouse, 2016). All you need is access to the internet, a mobile device, a collaboration app and you can ‘mobile collaborate’. Various apps afford the users the ability to: manage projects; communicate/conference via text, voice or video; track task timelines; share files.
For those of you just interested in communicating and conferencing there are a few apps that are worth exploring such as: Slack, Flock, Fleep, Stride.
Many are familiar with Slack and Stride is merging with Slack as of February 2019, so if you are considering exploring/using stride as an additional app, you might just want to wait.
If you are keen on trying a decent group messenger app, consider Fleep. In Fleep you can integrate with other apps and share files via: Onedrive, Google Drive, Drop box. You can make audio and video calls as well as share screens when conferencing. Fleep also has email compatability features so you can add anyone to your Fleep team and send conversations to their email address.
The following two resources review the most recent mobile collaboration platforms that you might want to consider exploring and using with your colleagues on your next group assignment or work task.
https://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-online-collaboration-tools-2018
https://www.proofhub.com/articles/best-collaboration-software-2018
Happy collaborating!
Chris
References:
Rouse, M., (2016). Mobile Collaboration. Retrieved, January 9, 2018 from: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/mobile-collaboration.
Collaboration is something online educators are constantly trying to encourage. Building that sense of community is important. As a designer, I’ve always got my eye out for different collaboration tools and that’s why this post caught my interest. Mobile collaboration is something that is commonplace right now, so blending it with the classroom may be an easy transition for many students.
The apps that the original poster mentioned are all great. Slack is a messaging tool for internal teams. What’s great about slack is that you can have channels, or discussion topics. I envision this be great for a team project where there are going to be different discussions happening at the same time. It’s a great way to keep organized.
The original poster made notable mention of Fleep because of they’re ability to integrate with other apps that many already use – I agree! He also generously added a couple articles that listed collaboration tools, which does a great job of providing a short description of each tool that would help users decipher which one would best fit their needs.