The World A.T. Ways

Posted By Kevin Gaugler on June 13, 2009

I just finished watching the 1 hour and 20 minute demo of Google’s new product, WAVE, to be released to the general public later this year. What might speak volumes about the product is that the video held my attention for that long. The Google team that developed this application set out to move organizational communication beyond email and instant messaging without becoming a social network. Just as a wiki is much about the creation of a collaborative document with multiple authors, Waves facilitate both synchronous and asynchronous group communication using a variety of media.

In trying to describe a Wave I feel much like a Spanish conquistador writing back to the king attempting to describe an Aztec city. We’ve seen some things like this before but never quite on this scale. A Wave, as best as I can describe it, is part-wiki, part-instant-message, part-email, part-threaded discussion. It combines the features of many of these tools to create an all-in-one, up-to-date conversation. The best way to learn about Wave is to set aside an hour and watch the video below. If you don’t have that kind of time, I’ve listed five reasons why I believe Wave will revolutionize classroom collaboration and one reason why it might not, at least not for a while.

Five reasons why Google Wave might revolutionize education:

1. Wave is open. Google Wave is a platform; it’s not a tool. Google has gone through great lengths to make sure it’s an open platform and to encourage others to build extensions that work with Google Wave. For example, the video demonstrates how one might manage one’s Twitter account completely within a Wave. Too, a Wave can be embedded in one’s site so that such collaboration can be viewed and edited by the public. Imagine your school’s classroom management system having the ability to communicate with Google Wave as well as the ability to embed a Wave in your classroom’s closed space.

2. Wave is multi-lingual. The video demonstrates the ability to write right-to-left or left-to-right as well as in non-western characters. There is also a demonstration of Rosi, a translation robot that Google claims uses semantics and context to provide real-time translations of Wave communication in 40 languages.

3. Waves are both synchronous and/or asynchronous. Possibly the most striking aspect of a Wave is it’s ability to manage real-time communication as well as time-delayed messages. For example, the system includes a “playback” feature that allows one to watch communication unfold through time. Google also promises to include soon options for playback so that one can watch the creation of a single sentence, paragraph or document. One might imagine watching one single user’s contributions as one moves through the timeline as well. Imagine how educators might design and assess student participation in group work with the ability to view and understand the history of a document from multiple angles.

4. Wave integrates a variety of media. Once can easily drag and drop photos, links, maps and videos in real time into a Wave, This practically allows one to share a screen with participants in the Wave. Online courses will never be the same. And I’m thankful to Google for that.

5. It’s Google. When Google rolls out a product (or buys one) people take note. However, it’s not every day (but maybe every other day) that Google announces such an ambitious project to the world. I’m willing to bet this Wave thing has real legs in the educational world.

The one reason why educators might not ride the Google Wave:

1. It’s hard to describe a Wave. One reason Twitter is so popular is that it does one thing well, so it’s easier to explain what to do with Twitter. A Wave, on the other hand, constitutes a myriad of communication possibilities and such a smorgasborg of options might prove too much for the average educator. Wave might be the tool of early adopters for quite some time. However, I would not expect Ashton Kutcher or CNN to open accounts in the first year after Wave launches.

What about you? Would you use Wave to communicate with your students? Let us know. Simply click on the title of this post and scroll to the bottom of the post to find the comment box.

In which the next wave in language education might be Wave; 5 reasons for and 1 against by Kevin Gaugler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Categories: Creativity, Teaching and Learning, web 2.0
Tags: communication, community, Google, Kevin, platform