Little did we know that about two weeks later, Buzz would arrive on the scene!
I've used a variety of "collaborative" tools; both with colleagues and with students; the latter not always as effectively as I'd like. (To see more about me, just click on my name in Scope).
The plan I have is that in the first week, we'll start to think about tools, the second week on how we collaborate with other teachers/lecturers/ academics [whatever you want to call them!] and in the final week, how we're getting students to use them (and why they often seem so reluctant to use them)
We're hoping to have a lot of the material in Wave; once you have joined the group, you should hopefully see a wave where Sylvia and I have shared our initial ideas; but to avoid too much confusion, I'm going to start a new wave called "Collaboration Seminar".
If, at any time, you want to start a wave, in theory, you just need to add the Scope Group to the wave - you don't have to add everyone individually. (You also can't remove people ... that's why you get to see our wittering!)
Caren
Good to know that it's not just Sylvia and I who have invites in case we run out! I hope you've managed to join the group and to see the waves we've started

However, I cannot find my way around Googlewave. I tried to do a search of "Collaboration Seminar" and "Scope." Can't find anyone.
Please post detailed instructions.

I see that you have joined the SCoPE Google Group. That's the first step in the process. Now technically this should give you access to the waves we set up for this seminar. I'm assuming from your comment about searching that you have access to Wave. If not, add your name to this list for an invitation.
From the Wave search field paste this and the waves should show up in your list:
group:scopecommunity@googlegroups.com
I hope this works! I'll be looking for you, Angelo. Be sure to report back if things don't work as I described.
I have a wave account and I signed up for the google group, but I'm missing how to jump onto the SCoPE group wave. Perhaps a screen shot or two might help? I've joined others in the past, but I think I've done it from direct invites.
Feeling a bit like I'm missing the mayonnaise jar in the fridge which is probably right under my nose, :)
Many thanks for your continued assistance!
Caren
No, it's not the mayo jar right under your nose ... try searching for Collaboration Seminar ... as that's what we've called it.
By adding everyone to the group, we hoped you'd just automatically see it; but obviously not!
(Something to add to the list of things to consider when using it as a teaching tool!)
Emma
group:scopecommunity@googlegroups.com
I secretly enjoy all this problem solving!

DOes someone want to start a new wave (with SCoPE in the title) and invite the group but NOT me, so I can see how difficult it is to add yourself?
(But, don't worry if you don't see me instantly - it's 10:30 pm in the UK now, so about to put the computer off)
As soon as a started to write in the wave my image appeared at the top. So there's no "join" process. I'm assuming the SCoPE Google Group was my way in.
Now that I'm able to cluster all the SCoPE waves together and see how we can easily we can stay together by adding the SCoPE Google Group to each new wave we create, I'm starting to relax a little. I have to say earlier today I was ready to roll out the yoga mat!
I was hesitant to join this SCoPE session, as I tried Google Wave a few months ago and my eyes glazed over, I found it so non-intuitive and ho-hum. After seeing the struggles people are having using it, it makes me wonder how workable it is (especially given the general educational technology interests so common in SCoPE participants!).
Alas, I think this may be good to try out in more of a community here, as I could not make sense of Wave alone. Perhaps that is my first learning from this session -- Wave is communal, and as such, does not make a lot of sense if only used alone.
Anyway, I feel safe in the facilitator hands of Emma and Sylvia.
Jeffrey
:)
minh
Struggling with navigating through all the various bits and pieces of cyber-applications, but very much looking forward to working with this seminar, partly 'cause I'm familiar with Emma's work (ATEE, Emma) and partly 'cause I want to see whether the ska about Google Wave is all it's cracked up to be.
Ciao, all!
Sandy

The membership in the Google Group might seem like a confusing step on the way to wave, but it seems to be the easiest way to add everyone into waves as they are created for this seminar. Although, I just discovered today that you can add this account to a wave to make it public: public@a.gwave.com
I tried it with the "Useful URLs" wave to see how it works.
Of course the problem with all this explanation is that it doesn't make sense until you have access to Google Wave! If haven't received an invitation be sure to add your name to the list:
http://groups.google.com/group/scopecommunity/web/wave-invitations
About our facilitator
Emma Duke-Williams is a Lecturer and Faculty eLearning Co-ordinator for the Faculty of Technology at the University of Portsmouth, UK. She is also a long time SCoPE member and active contributor to our seminars.
About the seminar
As you've already gathered, during this seminar we plan to really use the tools we talk about! As Emma mentioned, Google Wave will be one focus. This may be a challenge because:
1) wave is still in the early stages of development
2) it's not currently available without personal invitations
Emma and I each have quite a few invitations to give out, and I'm sure others who participate will also have invitations to spare. I think we've worked out a process that will get everyone into the waves we set up for this seminar. Check this resource for details on how to participate:
Participating in the Tools for Collaborating Online seminar
If you have questions about the logistics, please ask!
Participating in SCoPE seminars
SCoPE seminars are free and open to the public, and registration is not required. You are welcome to come and go according to your schedule and interests. To contribute to this forum discussion and to customize your visits you will need to create an account on the SCoPE site -- a quick process. Are you new to SCoPE or wondering how to manage your participation? Check this resource.
If you have any questions about participating in SCoPE don't hesitate to ask here in the forum, or get in touch with me directly:
scurrie@bccampus, skype:webbedfeat, 250-318-2907
Hi, I have been lurking / distractedly participating in scope workshops for a while now, always with the intent of participating more fully if life permits.
This workshop has come at a timely moment: I am in the intial stages of collaboration with an interesting group of teachers in three continents - collaboration tools have yet to be finalized.
I look forward to working with you
Cheers
Brian
Hope to see you guys in Wave! I still have a number of invites - so if anyone needs one, let me know...
WL
I'm not sure how I feel about Wave yet (I'm not a fan of Buzz mostly because of how Google blew it on the privacy issue), but I'm looking at this as an opportunity to spend more time playing around with it. Will we be looking at other collaborative tools as well?
Have you got an account yet, Heather - or have you indicated on the list that you'd like one?
Wave doens't seem to have the same privacy issues as Buzz, indeed, as others have noted, getting added to a wave isn't that easy (unlike Buzz, where getting out of one was difficult!)
Hello: I've been lurking for the last few seminars and I hope to be a more active participant for this one. So, I'll be the brave one and ask the stupid question: what is a wave? and why is it important to me?
Thanks, Christine (Chris) Horgan
Curriculum Co-ordinator, SAITY Polytechnic, Calgary, Alberta
http://wave.google.com/about.html has some information about it. (Thought I'd better not embed, in case people have slow connections!)
Cheers
WL
great to be here too!
I have been a lurker for the last few years. Not sure how much I will able to participate this time, but I will try.
I tried to search for the wave, but didn't find it. Can someone pull me into it please (cristinacost@gmail.com) . I can hardly swim in there i must say...and I still haven't given Buzz a try. So all of this is very exciting for me.
Thanks Emma and Sylvia for offering this workshop.
Cris
I've also been a lurker for a while but am particularly interested in collaborative learning - hence this posting. I've tried out buzz/wave with a couple of colleagues but haven't really looked at its full potential as a learning tool. so I've high hopes for this seminar. We'll see how it pans out with a trans-Atlantic presence.
Lisa
Did you join the Google Group? In theory, that should have given you access to the waves we've created (so far, 4 of them).
What I'm just about to do is to change their names (if I can!) to all start with SCOPE. There are two that now start with "SCOPE" and are shared with the SCOPE group, so in theory, you should be able to see them; there are two others that have SCOPE in the title, but were the ones Sylvia and I were testing things out in, so even more chaotic than others!
Let us know if you can find them; or if we have to have another way of adding people - as it's clearly going to be difficult if we have to add everyone individually.
I have also been a lurker but learnt a lot from SCoPE seminars!
I had the same problem trying to find the google wave until I read the following instructions from Sylvia:
"From the Wave search field paste this and the waves should show up in your list: scopecommunity@googlegroups.com"
Hope it works for you!
Silvia
At the moment, there are far more messages in here than there are in Wave.
Why do you feel that it's better?
So far, we've got 4 waves, two that Sylvia and I were using to plan/ test things out, and two more that are more for general use. However, once we'd added the scopeGoogle group to them all, it seems difficult to remove it (the remove button seems constantly greyed out!) and they don't seem lockable.
That said, there have been a few new feature in the last month or so, so perhaps it will become easier.
We're trying out Wave among some of the course designers at SIAST, but I haven't had a chance to really hit the road with it (feel like I've just been driving in circles around the parking lot). I agree that Moodle is better for discussion, but I have used Wave for some collaboration and I, as Emma said, the best way to see what we can do with it is to give it a try.
Oh if we all had Moodle to work with. :)
Then I saw that this Scope seminar was going to use Wave! This is a perfect learning opportunity - other grown-ups muddling through together.
Thanks to all in advance.
I think there is potential once some of the teething technical problems are ironed out.
But for eg was at a google seminar - the organisation itself has its own servers for Wave and that's what their employees are using to collaborate and work on projects. And with that there's capability to build on the initial "power" of Google Wave to evolve to much more...
Cheers
WL
Hello: I bounced into this seminar this morning determined to do more than lurk. I have yet to be successful finding any wave (but I've not done anything more than a quick look)....but today's emails make me wonder if Google's "wave" is really a tsunami! I'm getting a little worried about dipping a toe into this particular water what with all the comments around chaos. Yikes!
I'll try again tomorrow....with my life jacket already on and inflated.
Chris Horgan
Hi WL - what do you see as the advantages of Google Wave for online collaboration? I would love to hear more about your experience.
Jenny
Here's some of the advantages that come to mind based on some of the google waves that I have seen/participated :
- has to be synchronous communication/collaboration enabling real-time collaboration which can be implemented on a reasonable scale (not just small groups). For comparison as an e.g., groups working on concept/mind maps synchronously but lacking other tools to make the collaboration more effective; and then these groups end up using additional technologies/tools to make things work vs various possibilities of different tools/tech within a wave(s)
- Possibly linked to previous, I would say flexibility and "boundary-less" communication and collaboration, and potential to create interesting activities using Wave
- More active participation (and feedback) even during a presentation: Person A creates a presentation in a Wave and participants can interact and make changes to presentation, perhaps to enhance the content, etc. It's more interactive (of course chaotic!) and perhaps lends to richer and more engaging experience
- Use of playback of Wave can allow for reflection, analysis, further discussion and research. There's talk of making learning /thinking visible - I see these possibilities.
We can discuss further...
Cheers
WL
We were trying to find a way of getting our feet wet - so it's good to see the Channel swimmer has joined us :)
I am a learner swimmer too :-), but benefitted from interacting with different groups who have been trying Wave.
There is potential in Wave but I have had share of crashes :-)
I am looking forward to the discussions and ideas from this group ie Scope. Always enjoyed and learnt a lot from the community here.
Cheers,
WL
Hi WL - thanks for this response. Having asked you the question I couldn't remember where I had posted it and have only just located it again.
I'm not sure that I understand the synchronous bit - currently I seem to be posting messages in the Waves much as I would in a discussion forum - so asynchronously. I think I must have missed something.
I haven't yet worked out how I know when something new has been added to a Wave.
Finally, I'm not sure what playback is - could you tell me more.
Thanks for the information.
Jenny
Wave has a playback feature where it archives every second of the action in the wave. When I click the playback button in a Wave, it replays the sequence of the wave activity.
Cheers
WL
Added Auntie Rosie bot to the Testing second wave for Scope seminar... Apparently the original Rosy not quite working :-)
Hi Emma and Sylvia
I have a Google Wave Account but have never used it (like Twitter!) - but would like to know more about it. I also work a lot with online groups and am interested in collaboration for a variety of purposes.
I have been aware of SCoPE for a while, joined fairly recently and this is my first seminar.
I have found 5 SCoPE waves. They don't all give me live 'Reply' or 'Edit' facilities and my photo does not appear along the top bar. Do I have to be invited to join a wave to be able to edit it or reply to a comment? Some advice would be great!
Looking forward to this.
Jenny
Have you joined the Google Group? In theory, if you're in that, you should be able to join in the wave. It's how you add a group of people.
By the way, I'd tend to avoid the two that haven't got "SCOPE" at the start of the header - they're the ones that we created when we were experimenting ... the others are more focussed.
So far I've spent quality time enough for today, without getting any real impression because I could not spot the very Scope wave although I did join the Google+Scope group earlier today - all I could see was a list of contacts who are probably also wave users, so I sent one tentative Ping and then left the page - now realizing this might be like synch chat (?)
Looking fw to play with this new communication toy
Cheers
WL
In theory, yes, though can we remove them from the directory - the two that Sylvia and I created for planning are a bit chaotic, and I'd rather not have them too visible; not because we said anything that we wouldn't want you all to ready, but, some have pointed out, this

is very daunting if you'd rather have this

I think that some of the more crowded waves can be scary!
In the process of searching I did find this useful tip.
- Search on group:scopecommunity@googlegroups.com
- Save the search

eg
#LrnChat Directory on Wave
Just add your Google Wave name and Twitter here:
Please ADD in this blip by SURNAME;
A
B
C
E
.... etc
Cheers
WL
PS Some might feel concerned having their details in public space, etc.
That was it! I didn't join the group - just assumed because I could see it that I was a member! All sorted now. Thanks for your help.
Jenny
http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/resource/view.php?id=6521
I'm looking forward to learning this collaborative tool.
Can you send me an invitation, please, if you have one left?
Thanks
Jo Ann Hammond-Meiers
Do you mean an Invitation for Google Wave? If so, could edit the document that Sylvia's linked to in the first post, so that we can send you one.
Looking forward to seeing you in there!
Jeffrey
Hi Jeffrey - we really can't keep meeting like this  . Time to meet up face to face I think!
Jenny
I can't help but wonder aloud (or in-text) to what extent it is worth the effort to spend this workshop trying to navigate Wave . . .
Jeffrey
So, let the games begin! :-)
Have you found the right waves yet, Brenda?
I am the eLearning Coordinator with the UNBC Centre for Teaching, Learning, & Technology and am looking forward to the discourse and Wave practice over the next 2 weeks. I have been using it to collaborate with small groups for meeting agendas and have used it with a computer science class in group note-taking exercises, but have yet to discover how it can be used as an intuitive tool to easily facilitate collaboration. In my computer science classes I used Etherpad ( http://etherpad.com/ ) to great effect ( which was subsequently bought by Google to be incorporated into Wave ).
I thought I'd introduce myself as others are doing it as well. I am working at the University of Alberta in the Faculty of Education with their Technology Professional Development unit. I'm looking after updating TechPd's website, adding some learning resources to it and helping with some behind-the-scenes e-Class stuff.
I'm working on a resource for online discussion so thought this seminar would be just the ticket to start thinking about it.
It's been quite a challenge getting my feet wet in Wave. I guess the biggest hurdles so far have been getting my mind around exactly what Wave is. I started off thinking it was like an online message thing, so created my own wave just sending a message to Sylvia!! Hmmm - time to rethink the metaphor. Someone above mentioned its chaotic nature - I've certainly experienced that in the last two days but I think things are starting to click a bit now.
One of the neat things to think about for most of us to whom technology has become second nature is what it's like to be a new learner in this venue. That has certainly come home to me today.
Yes, I think that one advantage of trying a tool that's new to most of us is that it reminds us of what it's like for our students when we want them to learn a new tool!
Instructions that seem really easy to us are suddenly more complex than we'd imagined.
Emma:
I expect it does us all good to be reminded of how learners feel when they enter new subject areas....as a learner in this seminar and as a learner trying to even find just one small SCoPE wave, I am certainly grumpy right now....being frustrated in my efforts and grumpy with myself for not being able to figure out how best to proceed (and probably retreating to "lurker" status as a result).
Right now, I'm trying to determine whether or not to clear my cookies so that I can find the wave (I keep getting an error message that this is my next step). Ummmmm....feels like an insurmountable burden at this stage. ...which is really good for me (I expect).
Just thinking aloud for a moment...instructors/profs are hired for their subject area expertise and not hired as techies....if they can combine the two easily, their learners benefit. Are learners also accepted into a study area because of their interest and background knowledge? Can the electronic tools used in a course present a burden or obstacle that can make further studies difficult?
The air is leaking out of my life vest.....looking for straws.
Cheers, Chris
To those with whom I haven't had the pleasure of connecting and interacting in previous SCoPE seminars, as well as to those with whom I have, let me express hopes for a revealing and rewarding encounter with Tools for Collaborating Online, with Emma and Sylvia at the helm.
I'm a teacher of English as an additional language. I work at a small prefectural university in southwestern Japan. Based in the information administration section of a faculty of administrative studies, I work with undergraduates and colleagues on blogs, wikis, and anything else that I find works for blended, off- and on-line language learning and teaching.
I guess I weighed anchor from this Welcome! moorage in the SCoPE Moodle prematurely, half a day or so before launch time on the opposite side the Pacific Rim. I was expecting to find a raft of intro's off Google-land, or in-shore on some calm estuary there, but when day broke again JST, it was all I could muster to make modest headway through the breaking surf.
À bientôt encore là bas. Permettez-moi de nous souhaiter à tous un bon voyage.
Si vous habitez le long du littoral du Pacifique, naviguez le long de la côte, ou restez à l'ancre près du rivage, faites attention aux répliques et tsunamis.
Paul
I like to discover new tools and play with them and often I abandon them except for the very few that really work for me (I'm totally twittered-out but I'm still so full of enduring and everlasting wiki-love).
I'm particularly interested in the third week that you have planned, especially the administrative side of just managing all of this, the logins, the passwords, the user ids, managing the addresses, etc. with students in an learning environment, and how to support faculty in this admin side (or not?).
Bonnie
Steveston, B.C.
If you've got the same ID in both or you want to be more anonymous in there - then don't worry :)
I'm usually a lurker on SCoPE forums, quickly gleaning ideas and resources and not contributing due to time challenges ... but this is too good of a topic not to try to participate a bit more.
I also have briefly messed with Wave in the fall, then abandoned it for now ... this will be a good opportunity for me to try to jump in to a group exploring it. So I will hope to see you over there, and I will also hope to participate more actively here.
Sorry for the delay in replying - I've been away for a long weekend!
Looking forward to finding you riding high on the waves :)
Emma
We have been using Google docs and drop box and Groove for quite a bit of project collaboration but I look forward to trying Wave! Best wishes E.A.
For anyone who is just dropping in now, don't worry about being late to the conversation! And we have many more wave invitations to spare. Just add your name to the list if you want one.
Glad that you had a good time in Kenya (not that we're in the least bit jealous!)
Thanks to Slyvie I am now on Wave and will try to give it a quick once over in the coming days if at all possible! Best wishes E.A.