Overall Evaluation

Google Wave is a powerful multi-media collaboration tool combining aspects of instant messaging, e-mail, blogging, wikis, social media, and other web tools. With all this functionality combined in a single web tool, it can be overwhelming for even advanced users to master; especially when trying to collaborate in real-time.
There is exciting potential for student collaboration in group learning projects and WebQuests. Imagine being able to develop a WebQuest "Wave" where you could invite your students, outline their task, provide links to resources as well as easily embed video and other media. Then students could post comments or questions, add links to resources or additional media, report findings, or comment on other students' posts...all in one document!
For educators, there is also tremendous potential for collaboration in curriculum and professional development. Consider the possibilities of developing a global education curriculum with another educator in another country. This media rich collaboration could be synchronous (in real-time) or asynchronous depending on the location of the educators. Rubrics could be developed within a single document rather than managing multiple versions e-mailed back and forth between contributors.
With the wiki features of Google Wave, Richardson's statement regarding wikis holds true:"The collaborative environment that wikis facilitate can teach students much about how to work with others, how to create community, and how to operate in a world where the creation of knowledge and information is more and more becoming a group effort." (Richardson, pg 69)

References:

Grabe, Mark, and Cindy Grabe, 2007. Integrating Technology for Meaningful Learning. New York: HoughtonMifflin Co, 2007. Print.


"Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0." Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), 1999. Web. http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html.


Richardson, Will. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. California: Corwin, 2010. Print.