I have Google Wave!
Well, I’ve had it for a week now, but have had no-one to play with in it (on it?), so effectively I didn’t have it at all.
But now I have Wave buddies 🙂 And so the messing around begins!
I’m joined by fellow English teachers and Tweeps Bianca (@BiancaH80), Julie (@JulBain), Darcy (@Darcy1968) and soon also Troy (@TroyM7).
The Negative Nancy in me is screaming “Don’t bother! They’re never gonna let you use anything this USEFUL in school anyway (because lewd images and pervy old people COULD be on a Wave too – QUICK EVERYONE, HIDE THE KIDS!)”. But after using it for not very long at all, you just know that this is one of those things that is going to have a big impact on how we ‘do’ activities, lessons, even school. Web 2.0 tools have opened up a whole new world of collaborative working and creating, but the way Google Wave uses in-text editing, integration of images and video, real-time editing (you can see each other type!) and, perhaps most excitingly, playback (so you can see additions and comments appear in the order they were added)…it just has oodles of potential that I am only just comprehending. And best – it’s really FUN to use!
Just now, I have started a collaborative poem with my English teaching ‘Wavers’ – I wrote in a couple of lines, and hopefully others will add and we’ll see how it goes. (I would love ideas for other English-y activities/tasks for us teachers to trial on a Wave, if you have any?)
Maybe this is what I find the most fun – getting to try old activities in new ways by testing them on myself!
Or, is it the real feeling of a ‘playground’ that I’m getting by making a collaborative Wave with my peers?
All I know is that tonight, with Twitter AND Wave going bananas, I felt like a teen on MSN or something! My PLN just got so much more…personal. I wonder if the novelty is going to wear off?
Kelli McGraw 