Surfing the Wave

In ECMP 455, we are all picking some sort of technology or tool and making a short presentation about it to our classmates.  Initially, I was going to discuss how iPods could be used in math education, much like I did for my final ECMP 355 project, Math + iPods.  I wanted to do something new that I didn’t really know much about, something that I might use in the future.  Then I remember all the hype that Google Wave was receiving a few months ago.  I’m not entirely sure why the hype has died down, but I intend to find out by looking more into it.

Essentially, Google has set out to reinvent email. At first I thought, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Then I realized, it is kind of broken. Half of the time mine doesn’t seem to work and you just need to look at any forwarded email to realize the mess that they can quickly become. What they have done is made it hosted, and you can go in and modify it in real time (you can see others making changes if you’re both in at the same time). It also seems to be easier to attach things, and see how things have played out, with a rewind tool. I’m not exactly sure what else can be done, but I like the sounds of it already.  I think that this could become a great tool for teachers and students to use when collaborating with one another.

I found this great, short video about Google Wave on Youtube:

Last semester when everyone was going Wave crazy on Twitter, I clicked on many of the links and bookmarked them using my Delicious account.  Now I’ve switched over to Diigo, but transferred everything over.  You can view the links that I have collected here.  There are certainly even more resources out there, and I’ll be doing my best to find them so I can try to discover Wave’s full potential.

Also, since this is a collaboration tool, it is pretty difficult to play with yourself.  I have an account (webbly@googlewave.com) and I also have 24 invitations, since right now it is in a limited preview and you have to be invited by another user to use it.  Dean has also told me he has a few invitations to get rid of.  So if anyone would like to try it out with me or just get an invite of your own, just let me know!