Google Wave for learning

Magnetic Poetry of Google Wave ala Wookie.

Scott Wilson of CETIS, reported on Monday June 1st, that he had successfully implemented a Google Wave gadget on Wookie server as a W3C Widget. He commented:

By itself this is not a very exciting example, as most of the cooler examples need a participants model, and so lend themselves better to running in something like Elgg or Moodle than a plain blog site like mine. However the basic principle is that Widgets with this level of interaction could easily replace LMS-specific tools in the near future.

He goes on to say that he has only tested in Firefox and Safari4Beta. I tested on the iTouch and can see the tiles move on the Touch when I use computer browser to interact with the gadget but the Touch's interface does not allow me to move the tiles.

While I agree that this particular gadget is not the most compelling demonstration, it convinced me that we should attend closely to developments at Google Wave and CETIS. Wilson has demonstrated the principle that Lars Rassmussen articulated in his video introduction to Google Wave that they intend for Wave to be free and open to developers at several levels including running local servers. This may be the venue for open source effort that Sally Loughlin and I discussed recently.