Google Wave, that is! Google Wave will revolutionize how we communicate and collaborate online and invitations to the preview have just started to be distributed to 100000 early adopters, who will each be able to invite more users. Ever since Google demonstrated the product at a conference earlier this year, I have been so anxious to start using it and exploring its potential to change the way I teach and the way we all learn.
Have a look at what Google Wave is all about:
The most obvious application in education is the potential for collaboration in partner/group assignments. No need to wait for one person to be done before the other can contribute – work on two parts of the same document at the same time, or proofread and edit while one person still types.
What if an entire class contributed to a group document? Where before such a task would have been a logistical nightmare – our school servers are designed to keep other people out of our documents and block them from editing our work – it is now completely possible.
As a teacher, I can pose a question to my entire class and allow all students the chance to simulatenously answer and contribute to a discussion. Add a gadget and all the sudden I can conduct a live poll to see, at a glance, the opinion of my entire class within seconds.
Google Wave would not replace a good class face-to-face discussion – but is certainly fabulous for distance education or even for keeping a good record of sorts of key jumping-off points of a class discussion. Teachers could glance at student answers and call on particularly interesting responses to have those students explain and expand their thinking aloud.
Imagine also that students who are away sick could still be participating in your classroom lessons with your entire class – from anywhere in the world!
The robots and gadgets that can be added to Wave expand its usefulness even further. One I am most excited about is context based spell checking. It can now tell the difference between to/too/two and there/their/they’re!
And what about live translation? I have so many english language learners in my classes that often can struggle with the concepts in my classes – not because they are not very intelligent – but because the language itself is a challenge. What if they could be joining in on our discussions – using their own native tongue, while the rest of us see what they are saying in english? How would their classroom engagement and learning improve?
With the code being open source and Google being eager to have developers create new applications, I wouldn’t be surprised if great new things come along that haven’t even been imagined yet.
I’m excited to get my hands on it and discover the possibilities…. patiently awaiting my invite!
