Google Wave session from IACRL preconference

At IACRL last week, I attended a preconference session on Google Wave presented by Ray Schroeder from the Center for Online Learning, Research and Service (COLRS) at University of Illinois Springfield. Ray and his team have been using Wave in online learning since the preview version was launched late last year. I’m still not completely sold on Wave, but I see the potential. I secured a Wave invitation in November 2009, but have been unhappy with the instability of the platform. After taking to Ray and his team, I found out that a lot of my connectivity issues stem from my use of Internet Explorer—Chrome is recommended as the browser of choice and is a significantly more stable platform for Wave. I also learned that:

Since Google Wave is in real time, if you are typing a “blip” (post) anything you type will be visible to others looking at the wave. If you are editing your blip, others can see what you are typing as you do it.

Wave has some problems with embedding certain links. For example, Ning and Blackboard will break your Wave and you will be unable to continue adding to it. It also difficult to recreate a Wave once it’s broken.

Waves can be posted to a website. This is a neat feature that allows publication of a Wave even as the Wave continues.

Ray and his team have created some great resources too. In the Ning network, they have Get Your Head in the Clouds which has a Wave section and Wave Collaboration in Learning . They also have a blog at http://uisgooglewave.blogspot.com/ which has terminology and additional resources.

I will continue to monitor Wave but I’ve begun to explore other Wave-like experiences as well. I’ve used wiggio.com to some success and can see the benefits of a single copy application. Ray feels that the multimedia aspects and the Google name will make Wave big by the end of 2010, but I must admit that I have my doubts. I think the amount of information presented in Wave can be overwhelming. It’s kind of like being in a room of relatives who are all talking really loudly and having many different conversations. I also don’t think Wave is very intuitive—the learning curve is very steep and this will make it difficult to implement. Only time will tell if Google Wave is the trend of the future, so we’ll have to wait and see…