I thought I knew a bit about the internet (I spend enough time on it), but I truly learned a ton of new things about the tools available and the surprising ways they can be used in the classroom.
Honestly though, at this time I am only extra excited about one: the wiki. Not just any wiki, but a new type that I think in many ways may revolutionize the way people communicate and collaborate.
Google Wave is that tool and I am excited to learn more about it, use it, see it go into wide release, and use it in my classes by next fall. It is not really billed as a wiki, but unless I misunderstood our unit on wikis, it is at least wiki-like.
Not just wiki-like, but wiki-plus, I think. It has all the collaborative features of a wiki--multiple people editing the same document--and many more.
As an educator, I just want to mention one that I just learned about: with Google Wave, you can go back in time and play back what has been added and edited to the document. I never understood how big a deal that was until today.
Check this out. As a teacher, I imagine one thing that might be difficult about assessing participants contributions on a wiki is, well, keeping track of who has participated. With this playback feature, you can see, edit-by-edit, who worked on the document!
This is just the latest reason I am excited about one day (it is still in beta) using Google Wave with my students.
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