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The Google Wave Will Change Education Forever

Wednesday, June 3rd 2009 by Joe Corbett
Joe Corbett Posts

If you haven’t heard about Google Wave, prepare to be blown away. I made the mistake of starting this movie at 10:30 last night thinking I’d probably just watch a few minutes and drift off to sleep. Little did I know I would be glued to my screen for the next 80 mins while I took a sneak-peek into the future of how we are all going to work collaboratively across the internet. I’m happy to put myself on-record as having said that all of you who are reading this will use this product in some way, whether it is to conduct classes, arrange social events, or manage your digital footprint.

Google Wave is 100% open-source, so rest assured that developers are ravenously developing extensions, plug-ins, modules, and anything else necessary to make it work on all the platforms we use today. I implore you to watch this video; consider setting 80mins aside to digest this information, and then discuss it with us. This might be the most important professional development you do this year outside of NECC.

@scottmerrick tweeted me to let me know about the post, Five Reasons to Be Terrified of Google Wave. This post raises concerns about adopting Google Wave as your primary communications platform; while I agree with some of these concerns, I still think the Wave is going to play a crucial roll in linking all of the channels we collaborate on currently. Lars Rasmussen of Google asked the question, “What would e-mail look like if it was invented today?” Google Wave attempts to answer that, but I don’t think it is attempting to replace e-mail as suggested in that post. I absolutely spend time revising e-mails to make sure my tone and message convey exactly what I need them to, which is next-to-impossible using a platform that is real-time chatter like Google Wave. If you are “terrified” of Google Wave then you have probably already missed the boat. Don’t be scared, think critically; make the Wave work for you by letting the developers know what you need in order to be better at what you do.

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24 Comments

Steven Barber

Wednesday, 3rd June 2009 at 1:07 pm
 

As an experienced educator, I too am excited by the possiblities that “Google Wave” perhaps presents for educators to utilize as a truly collaborative & interactive educational environment!

scottmerrick

Wednesday, 3rd June 2009 at 1:58 pm
 

LOL Joe, thx for the mention. I should go on record that I’ll be adopting Wave the minute I can, and that I’m not agreeing with the “Terrified” post, just that I also like to keep some “pushback” voices in the choir to keep perspective. I’m with you, having blogged Wave the minute I finished the freakin’ feature film-length demo. I’m just a lowly teacher, doin’ the best ah can, Captain.

I’m hoping this weekend to do an impromptu group viewing of the demo, within Second Life. That should be fun and enlightening, especially about the attitudes innovators take toward this stunning breakthrough!

Joe Corbett

Wednesday, 3rd June 2009 at 2:12 pm
 

haha Scott, sorry if it sounded like I was trying to label you as one of the “haters” of Google Wave, it was not my intention. Trust me I understand pushing back on new Technologies. I’m as cynical as they come when adopting the lastest “thing”. I never want to be that guy with a huge collection of Laser-Discs or HD-DVD’s for that matter.

It’s important to be tough on these advances because they impact our lives in so many ways and since they are open-source anything we dream up can probably be built by a talented developer. Anyway good luck on the Second Life Demo, if you want to use ISTEConnects to get the word out just let me know.

Joe Corbett

Wednesday, 3rd June 2009 at 9:57 pm
 

Scott Lee on the Classroom 2.0 Ning asked me this: “How will it change education? Examples?”

My response:

Well for one thing I think having many users collaborating on the same project /document at the same time in multiple languages across multiple platforms opens the door for some amazing cross cultural learning. Teaching about France? Plug Google Wave into your wiki and invite French students to work with your students in real time with translations on the fly for both groups. Sure that can be done now, but not as close to real time as this is and not with out a tremendous amount of preliminary communication. It will be easy to jump into collaborative learning sessions any where you find them.

The possibilities are endless. Google Wave is open-source which means that if you create a demand for something the Wave should do a developer can create a module to serve your needs. Which is why blogging about what you think it can do and what you need it to do is very important.

What do you think?

Boyd Blundell

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 12:40 am
 

I might stream this into my Second Life class as well. Thanks for posting that, Joe.

Kate Ter Haar

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 5:36 am
 

I too watched the Google Wave video and was blown away. The idea of real time collaboration is very exciting.

Andrew Marcinek

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 11:48 am
 

This will change the way we communicate and educate. It basically takes all of the satellite applications we use and brings them together. Google has always found a good way of taking all the clutter out there and turn it into one, practical functioning tool. I love the playback function! Cannot wait to play!

Google wave will surely be awesome!

Joe Corbett

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 1:14 pm
 

@Boyd I look forward to seeing it deployed that way, imagine interacting with your second lifers from your smart phone using wave.

@Kate It is very exciting!

@Andrew I’m really looking forward to seeing this un-cluttering my social networks, too many to manage!

Beth Still

Saturday, 6th June 2009 at 9:43 pm
 

Joe,
I started watching the video at 10:30 at night, too! The more I listened the more I was blown away. All I could do while I was watching the video was imagine all of the incredible possibilities that Google Wave is going to open up. It is just one more amazing tool that educators (and others of course) can use to break down barriers that separate us. It appears that it will allow us to collaborate so easily. I am very excited to give Google Wave a spin!

Donelle

Sunday, 7th June 2009 at 10:04 am
 

Opportunities for instant communication and collaboration! I love the character-by-character transmitting for the instant messaging. How much time will that save?! The playback feature is the most wonderful thing. And did you see how all 4 people were editing captions on those photos at the same time with no lag time?

This can have a huge impact on student collaboration. I signed up for early notification of Wave’s release.

I just want a t-shirt now.

Tim

Thursday, 11th June 2009 at 1:07 pm
 

I’m not sure what it takes to get that Tshirt Donelle.

I was at the conference this year with most of our team and everyone sort of assumed the tshirt would be a part of the ‘gift with purchase.’

I guess a free Android phone is enough of a tchotchke!

On a more serious note, Google Wave’s availability is going to save us eons of development time as many of the collaborative features are very much in line with our product roadmap.

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Thursday, 11th June 2009 at 7:12 pm
 

[...] This post was Twitted by toddnorton – Real-url.org [...]

Kaseema Jernigan

Friday, 12th June 2009 at 2:18 am
 

I am excited about Google wave it may change the way online classes are conducted and how chatting is done today. I look forward to colaborating with other on the web using this tool.

Matthias Heil

Friday, 12th June 2009 at 2:34 am
 

I second the enthusiasm for Google Wave, and have also thought a little bit about implications and potential for the education sector, e.g. about whether Moodle and other classical LMSs will still be necessary, or they should/can be integrated with Wave as robots and/or blocks (as shown in the IO presentation). So if you are not afraid of a little German, check with http://matthiasheil.de/2009/05/30/google-wave-integrierte-offene-kommunikation/

Al Mendoza

Thursday, 2nd July 2009 at 5:33 pm
 

The Microsoft version leverages the Office Suite as an online file share and collaboration/ project management tool.
I like the Wave, but, Google will hunt down every bit of data they can and re-index it for market presence. New PCs often come with Google tool bars and even Linux and Mozilla utilities serve to route clicks to Google, a practice that makes education computing a pain to setup. Its Creepy when one thinks about it.
The Microsoft version leverages the Office Suite as an online file share and web space, collaboration, and project management tool. At least the upfront payment asked for by MS is more honest.
Open source systems also exist for collaboration and the PCS providers are offering alternatives to the PC- and its only the beginning.
I work in industry and have watched as even keywords(SEO) are devalued by Google so that they can earn off of hits.
I prefer commercialization stay in the realm of commercial enterprise and that educational systems not.

Al Mendoza

Thursday, 2nd July 2009 at 5:35 pm
 

By the way, if e-mail were invented today it would look like Twitter.

Google Chrome OS on Every Netbook in Every Classroom | ISTE Connects - Educational Technology

Thursday, 9th July 2009 at 10:00 am
 

[...] you read my post about the Google Wave, and how it has great implications for the future of education, you might have noticed that [...]

Damien Riley

Monday, 3rd August 2009 at 10:52 am
 

Looks good but people in education have trouble doing basic online tasks. I din’t think this Google Wave will affect k12 education for many years and by then they’ll have something else. I could see myself learning it and collaborating with myself.

John Sowash

Sunday, 1st November 2009 at 10:35 pm
 

Over the past couple of weeks I have been running a contest on my blog in which I offered to give away nine Wave invitations for creative uses of this new product. I had over 70 entries and lots of great ideas. You can view them on my blog: http://electriceducator.blogspot.com/2009/10/9-ways-to-use-google-wave.html

links for 2009-11-06 « Mathematics, Learning and Web 2.0

Saturday, 7th November 2009 at 12:37 am
 

[...] The Google Wave Will Change Education Forever | ISTE Connects – Educational Technology (tags: wave google) [...]

Ross Mahon

Wednesday, 18th November 2009 at 4:51 am
 

Really liked your blog, I wanted to chat with you further. I am in my first year of a masters in Cyberpsychology. One of the areas I am looking at is how language has changed in the last 10-15 year due to internet usage. Are there any pointers that you could give me re: articles or journals. Any help would be brilliant.

Thanks

Ross

Joe Corbett

Wednesday, 18th November 2009 at 10:20 am
 

I found this with a quick search that I found interesting. http://bigthink.com/joriegraham/re-how-has-the-internet-changed-language I’m not sure if you are in a position to conduct some basic research, but you might want to setup a study that measures emotional responses using different technologies to communicate.

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