While very few of you may be shedding tears over the demise of Google Wave, or even knew what it was, we probably haven’t seen the last of this service, PC World reports. The search giant says the technology behind its ill-fated collaboration tool will live on in new products that have not yet been announced. Google isn’t giving any hints about what new those new products might be or how they would benefit from Wave features. But company CEO Eric Schmidt recently said the Wave team would be moving over to other products that are “like Wave but applied in some other areas,” according to a YouTube video posted by TechCrunch’s MG Siegler. So what might those other areas be that could benefit from Wave technology? The most likely candidate could be Google’s rumored Facebook competitor, Google Me. It’s unclear at this point what Google Me would be like or how it would differ from Buzz and Orkut, Google’s other two social applications.
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Google Wave for the K-12 classroom
Here I am at a session about Google Wave (presenters: Tim Stack, Utah Education Network, Jared Covili, and Mitchell Jorgensen). I have always been intrigued by this technology, but have not yet found a practical use for it. This session really helped with understanding how Wave works. To try Wave, visit http://wave.google.com.
The whole concept of Google Wave is live, real-time collaboration. A user starts a wave. It can be a simple post, or a more developed idea. Users that you invite to be a part of the wave can edit your post and can see the editing being done live, right in front of you. This session had more than 100 people, so you could see many edits happening all at the same time. In a classroom situation, it would certainly be more manageable. A cool feature about Wave is the ability to “playback” the edits; starting with the original post, then every edit after that point. This makes it easy to follow the progression of the edits. You can also make Waves public, so that anyone may contribute.
In a school setting, I can see the interface being very overwhelming for some students. The teacher would need to present Wave in a very concise method, as to not confuse the students too much. I like the ability to see live edits in front of you. Add in Google chat or Skype, and you are looking at real, live online collaboration. The session, in general, did not go into anything education-related, but was still very useful. I would have loved to see a Part 2, getting into practical applications for the classroom. To get started, I am going search for some public waves and get used to the interface, how it works, and come up with some great ideas for the classroom.…Read More
Google Wave: Now open to the public
Google Wave, a web-based tool to let people chat and collaborate in real time, is now open to the public, CNET reports. The free Google service brought a social dimension when it arrived with much fanfare nearly a year ago, although it was available only by invitation until now. Many educators say Wave could help with online teaching and learning. “It’s clear from the invaluable feedback we’ve received that Wave is a great place to get work done, in particular for teams working together on projects that involve lots of discussion and close coordination,” Google Wave product manager Stephanie Hannon said. “If you tried Google Wave out a while ago and found it not quite ready for real use, now is a good time to come back for a second try.” Google is making Wave freely available to Google Apps users, too. “Google Wave is about getting work done,” said Lars Rasmussen, a Wave leader…
…Read MoreHas Google developed the next wave of online education?
Combining text, audio, and video chat with features like drag-and-drop documents and interactive polls, Google Wave is a free web program that could add unprecedented depth to student interaction, many educators say.
Programmers who designed Google Wave, a tool still in development and only available through limited invites, started with a question: What would eMail look like if it were invented today?
The answer is a format that merges social networking with multimedia in an online meeting space where students and instructors can see each other type in real time, conduct private conversations, and edit documents simultaneously.…Read More