Google Wave Use Cases: Education

Google Wave is a much hyped new Internet-based communications and collaboration platform. It was announced at the end of May, released as a 'Preview' product shortly after and 100,000 more invites were made available at the end of September.

Early users reported mixed feelings. But one month after Google Wave was opened to tens of thousands of people, how are people using it now? What use cases are being discovered? Let's start with the education sector. We'll explore other use cases in upcoming posts.

What is Google Wave Again?

A quick reminder of what Google Wave is. In a nutshell, Google Wave is a new form of real-time communications. Google describes it as "equal parts conversation and document." In our first 'hands-on' postat the beginning of June, we described it as "real-time email with abig dose of IM built-in" - although we noted that "this only describesa small part of what Wave can do."

In a recent CNN profile, Wave creators Lars and Jens Rasmussen described it as making email "collaborative and instant."

Wave in Class

After searching some public 'waves,' we came across an educationalwave. Entitled 'Wave in Class,' this wave was started by Loren Baum (aself-described "collaborative learning enthusiast" and graduate studentat Ben Gurion University) and Sam Boland (a Politics student and "TechEnthusiast" at Occidental College, Los Angeles).

The wave was started to explore concepts like "Collaborative NoteTaking" and "Wave as a Debate Host." Nearly 100 people are included inthe wave, ranging from teachers to PhD students to IT professionals tohigh school students.

This particular wave was framed at the start as being "a set of collaborative documents, supported by a chat."

As a note-taking tool, Samuel Boland wrote that "there appears to bea concensus that this [Google Wave] will work as a note-taking tool,the only disagreement is over how to implement it." Options fornote-taking include voluntary extra-curricular groups, rotatingin-class groups and small in-class groups.

A few users enthused later in the wave that "Google Wave combines alot of the best features from different applications" - but with areal-time twist.It was noted that while Google Docs can be used to share notes andcollaborate on assignments, with Google Wave students can collaborate in real-time.This could be important in education for things like notetaking, askingquestions (a.k.a. a backchannel) and collaborative projects.

Another feature of Wave that would be useful for education purposes,according to this 100-person wave, is the play-back ability - "soinstructors can see exactly who did what, and see the progression ofideas."

Will Wave Make Students Lazy?

One concern that seemed to pop up several times in the wave was thatGoogle Wave could make it too easy for lazy students to get by. AsJustin Neitzey succinctly put it: "I don't think kids should be allowedpiggy back off the work of others."

This is a similar concern that some in the education system had with Wolfram Alpha, another innovative Web tool that is set to change the way education is delivered.

Manny Guendulay responded that "reading those notes andparticipating in the collaboration of those notes hold totallydifferent of levels of thinking." He argued that "the person simplyreading the notes (passively learning) has no chance to perform at thesame level as someone who helped collaborate (active learning) on thosenotes, or even watched and read along while they were being created."

In other words, engaging with Google Wave - and the Web in generalin fact - will lead to smarter, better performing students. That soundsreasonable to us, but time will tell for both Google Wave and WolframAlpha on that score.

Conclusion

Overall, it is clear that Google Wave has potential to be veryuseful in the education system, particularly as a real-timecollaborative note-taking tool. Three students experimented with justthat in a lecture; the resulting notes were said to be "more complete"than if Wave hadn't been used.

If you're interested in exploring other education waves, check these out:

• Higher Ed Directory (meta)
• Software Roles in Education - a structured, goal driven exploration
• Wave for Notes - about note taking
• Student-side Class Management: a Wave template

Features, Google, NYT, Products, Use Cases

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