Follow-Up: Pros & Cons for Google Wave in Academia

You might recall I wrote a post a couple months ago with a few tips for using Google Wave to write an academic paper. Now that the semester is finally finished, and the paper is all done, I wanted to follow-up more on how that process went and the pros and cons of using Google Wave to write a group paper in the academic setting.

Background Information

To give you a bit more background information on our research paper, our paper reported our findings from a survey instrument we created for people to take. We had to analyze hundreds of responses and then report our findings in our paper. There were six of us in the group, and our research looked at six different specific but very inter-related areas within the research we were doing. So each member of the group was responsible for analyzing their assigned area and then incorporating and connecting their findings with the other areas of research into a comprehensive and complete paper.

We used Google Wave to write our paper. Wave proved to be very useful for this type of project but lacked in some areas. Let’s take a look.

5 Tips for Using Google Wave to Write an Academic Paper

I am in my final semester at university right now, and for one of my senior classes, I have to do a group research project and write a group paper summarizing and explaining research with five other people. In my whole college career, I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to write a group paper as I have been when we received this assignment.

I don’t think the rest of my group really understood why I was so excited, but the fact was, I couldn’t wait to try Google Wave out to see how it would work with writing a group paper. I’ll tell you what I think of using Google Wave to write a group paper, but here are some things I’ve learned so far in the process.

In-depth Review of Google Wave Translation Bots

We’ve talked before about how to use the Aunt Rosy bot to translate your waves into another language. Truth be told, Aunt Rosy is not the only translation bot out right now. I also don’t know what everyone else’s experiences with Aunt Rosy are, but I’ve experienced some problems with it glitching and then filling up the wave with a bunch of repeated translations. So I thought we’d review a couple other translation bots for Google wave and see what they have to offer too: Translatey and Multilingual.

Aunt Rosie translation bot

Because I already explained how to use Aunt Rosie in another post, I’ll be brief here. It seems like Aunt Rosie is one of the most popular translation bots used right now. Unlike some other translation bots, Aunt Rosie gives you the ability to translate in realtime. Your words are translated as you type them underneath your blip.

7 Unique Ways to Use Google Wave… that maybe You didn’t Think of

We’ve all probably heard by now of the real basic and practical ways of using Google Wave like: note taking, brainstorming, organizing events, social networking, etc., but I wanted to compile a list that thought a little bit outside of the box.

And I wanted to ask you, based on your own areas of work, interests, and ideas, what creative, unique, or practical ways to use Google Wave have you come up with or used? I thought it’d be cool if we could start some sort of list.

1.) Songwriting

Aside from being a part-time internet geek, I’m also a musician and songwriter. It’s pretty common to collaborate and to co-write with other folks for some projects that I do. My brother also writes too, and often times we just send a bunch of emails back and forth with revisions and edits. The email copies quickly accumulate.

Google Wave Adds Features: Read Only & Restore

Google Wave has just updated itself with two brand new spankin’ features: the ability to add participants who can only read a wave, and the ability for any participant with full access to a wave to restore the wave to any previous state visible in playback.

Read Only Participants

As the creator of a wave, I have the ability to add and make participants in the conversation to either have full access to the wave or read only access. In the wave that you have created, click the picture of any of the participants at the top of the wave, and you’ll see you have an option to change their permissions.

Wavers Collaborating for Haiti

The tragic earthquake that happened in Haiti last week has prompted Wavers to collaborate together with information about relief, news updates, and more in public waves.

Earlier today, @googlewave gave a shout out to these Wavers:

A shout out to Wavers who’ve been collaborating on Haiti relief information and updates in public waves: http://bit.ly/5qI1aO

If you do a public search of “with:public tag:haiti” you’ll quickly find quite a list of public waves with resources, information, and updates for Haiti.

The Best of Google Wave Tips 2009

Happy holidays to all of you Wavers!

We’ll admit our blog is still pretty young, but we thought it would be cool if we compiled a list of the best Google Wave tips so far based on the amount of views and your comments. We appreciate your support so far and how you’ve told your friends about us. We’re excited to see what 2010 will bring in the world of Google Wave.

Here we go.

How to Use Poll Gadget 2.0 in Google Wave

Google Wave has a basic “Yes/No/Maybe” gadget but this can be a bit limiting when you have a question for participants in a wave that goes beyond a yes, no, or maybe answer. However, Poll Gadget 2.0 allows you to create a custom poll with custom options and settings. It’s one of the best customizable poll gadget that I’ve used so far.

Here’s how you can add it to a wave.

How to Add a “Whiteboard” in Google Wave

The Napkin gadget allows you to insert a “whiteboard” right into Google Wave so you can collaborate with live, handwritten drawings. You can customize brush color and size, and you have options to undo or clear your drawing.

Surely, this won’t necessarily allow you to create any artistic masterpieces, but it is a good way to share visual ideas if you happen to think that sort of way.

It’s really easy to add to your wave. Here’s how you can do it.

How to Embed a Remote MP3 File into Google Wave

Google Wave is meant to be a platform that allows collaboration on a variety of different levels. When you wave, you’re not just limited to an exchange of text like traditional instant messaging, but you can even include elements like video and audio.

WavePlayer is a gadget that allows you to embed MP3 files in a wave. You’re embedded MP3 will appear in an embedded audio player like this:

Here’s how you can do it.