Well, not long after I had written and posted my thoughts on Google's killing of Etherpad, than a tweet from @teachernz appeared with a link to a new post on the Etherpad blog. And it was a good message for a change.
The new post was titled "Etherpad back online until open sourced", and contained a couple of important points.
(1) New pads can now be created again - something that they had removed with instant effect previously.
(2) The code that made Etherpad what is was, is going to be open sourced, thereby allowing others to take it, use it, amend it and create similar services to Etherpad.
So, did Google realise what a mistake they had made by shutting it down instantly? Or was it the comments left on the Etherpad blog that forced a rethink over a much loved service? Either way - Etherpad is back, albeit temporarily, and that has made many teachers happy :o)
