A First Test of Google Wave
Mo Tanweer and I got stuck into Google Wave tonight and I think we found the experience really exciting from a teaching perspective.
In little over an hour we made big progress in developing a fresh set of teaching notes on the issue of nationalisation. I chose the initial topic (it ties in with my teaching this week) and Mo has chosen trade deficits as our second wave topic. We started by adding in examples of state-owned enterprises both here in the UK and from overseas (often more exciting and interesting for discussion) before editing some notes on arguments for and against nationalisation.
The real time collaborative messaging system is easy to grasp and use. Within sixty minutes we generated many more ideas than had we worked at it alone - and it is thrilling and awesome to be able to edit each other’s points, add examples, embed video into waves, add other links and chat live. Imagine the whole department using this to come up with a worksheet on a tricky topic - you’d be able to do it in 1/4 of the time and come away with a real sense of a team effort in drafting, shaping and pulling a document together.
Google has thrown open the source code so expect a wealth of apps to be developed in the next 6 months as Google Wave hits the ground running when it comes out of preview mode. Mo reckons this could work really well when editing / commenting on UCAS statements or essays with kids when they are at home! Online revision takes on a new dimension with Google Wave. We think a critical mass of perhaps four or five contributors at any one time works well - but perhaps we are underestimating the capacity of students to embrace this type of collaborative software - instant messaging on steroids!
Google Wave invites seem to be thin on the ground at the moment, but if there are other economics teachers out there with access, we would love to hear from you and invite you to join in a few waves! Come on in, the water is lovely.
Google and Average Revenue Product of Labour
Google’s headcount quadrupled between 2005 and 2009 but for some years the revenue per employee was in decline. This is now in reverse and income from each worked employed is now at a 3-year high at just over $300,000 a year! I might use this chart as a teaching aid when teaching labour market economics - Google is perhaps the world’s biggest advertising agency and it finds even more ways to monetise its services from month to month - whilst keeping the bulk of core functions free to users.
The Times interviews Google’s Eric Schmidt
This is a hugely interesting interview with the CEO of Google Eric Schmidt. The questions and issues covered range from the future of cloud computing, the decline of traditional print media through to the challenge of maintaining an innovative momentum in an organisation that now employs over 20,000 people.
“So we have 20 per cent time for example, which means that engineers can spend roughly one day a week working on things they find interesting. We let people create start-ups within Google—Wave, Android and Chrome are some examples of the company within a company model.
This link takes you to the rest of the interview
Google Wave - Next Steps on Collaborative Learning?
Rory Cellan-Jones reports from Google HQ in London on the development of Google Wave - a tool “that really needs s network effect for it to take-off.” Google Wave combines email and instant messages, enabling several users to edit documents in real time online. Google markets Wave as a combination between conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. What e-learning possibilities are there here for economics students and teachers?
How to start the next Google or Facebook
Victor Seidel, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford is speaking at our Management Society on Wednesday evening - if any colleague would like to come along they are more than welcome. The meeting starts at 8-45pm in Upper School, Eton and lasts for an hour.
A reminder too that Chris Coleridge, the founder of V-Water .... a business that is operating in an increasingly competitive market space with the likes of Vitamin Water and Juice Doctor - is speaking at our Entrepreneurship Society on Thursday night - again starting at 8-45pm. Teaching colleagues and their students are welcome.
Browser Wars!
Over the summer, it seems that the browser wars have intensified, and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer’s virtual monopoly has its days numbered. Earlier this year, Google brought out its Chrome browser, to rival Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and today it was announced that Google have signed a deal to get it in to Sony PCs.
Economics Snapshot - Google draws away from Microsoft and Yahoo
This BBC report discusses a deal announced between Microsoft and Yahoo.
“Microsoft’s Bing search engine will power the Yahoo website and Yahoo will in turn become the advertising sales team for Microsoft’s online offering”
This is an attempt to compete head on with the growing market dominance of Google in search engine queries but as the chart above shows there is a clear divergence between the market share of Google and the combined market share of Microsoft and Yahoo.
Microsoft and Yahoo’s combined share of U.S. search queries was 28% in June, down from 30% a year ago, according to comScore.
Windows for a new generation?
It seems that Joseph Schumpeter’s process of creative destruction is still going full throttle ahead, with Google’s announcement this week of a operating system (Chrome OS) to rival Microsoft’s dominance through Windows.
read more...»Public Good-le
For those of you who wish to discuss whether consumption via the Internet has public good features, here’s a good example
read more...»And another thing
Rory Cellan-Jones has a superb blog covering some of his work as the BBC’s technology correspondent.
read more...»Most Popular Topic Tags on the Economics Blog
recession, demand, economics, price, unemployment, prices, inflation, investment, costs, profit, downturn, supply, trade, debt, employment, confidence, euro, gdp, competition, capacity, risk, production, china, oil, incentives, exports, expectations, housing, pay, manufacturing, sterling, food, profits, property, mortgage, tutor2u, globalisation, banks, revision, slowdown, borrowing, usa, retailers, emissions, deflation, airlines, innovation, dollar, supermarkets, entrepreneur, efficiency, monopsony, elasticity, aqa, welfare, consumption, economist, productivity, saving, google, keynes, wealth, opec, depression, moodle, depreciation, jobs, competitiveness, credit crunch, economic cycle, cars, externalities, stocks, infrastructure, environmental, strategy, tim harford, carbon, vle, monopoly, subsidy, evaluation, eu, management, losses, protectionism, inequality, spare capacity, environment, poverty, bank of england, budget deficit, construction, behavioural, wages, macroeconomics, carbon trading, steel, commodities, output gap, skills, japan, oligopoly, imports, currencies, bbc, stagflation, contestable, agflation, cpi, farming, newsnight, choices, regulation, survey, taxes, government failure, itunes, minimum wage, lse, climate change, paul mason, population, intervention, keynes society, aviation, amazon, fiscal stimulus, single market, pricing, dan ariely, cartel, nationalisation, pollution, eton college, interest rates, shareholder, london, rationality, redundancies, market failure, rpi, mpc, shipping, behavioural economics, germany, robert peston, india, rsa, reputation, currency, quantitative easing, facebook, income elasticity, current account, stakeholders, brazil, coffee, savings, microsoft, monetary policy, crowding out, barriers to entry, collapse, multiplier effect, suppliers, economies of scale, price discrimination, uk economy, development, quiz, apple, surplus, taxation, labour market, tesco, free, scrappage, behaviour, tragedy of the commons, opportunity cost, open source, vat, smoking, cost of living, poverty trap, merger, growth, speculation, edinburgh, discrimination, ownership, cost benefit analysis, northern rock, global, ireland, supply chain, oecd, shareholders, scarcity, balance of payments, petrol, liquidity, duopoly, etonomics, iphone, trade deficit, starbucks, happiness, budget, human capital, subsidies, capital, immigration, eurozone, takeover, ecb, paradox of thrift, exploitation, advertising, wiki, public sector, utility, wants, labour force survey, peter day, tax, brand, blog, poland, iceland, foreign exchange, recovery, indirect tax, european union, robert frank, roger bootle, ocr economics, heathrow, hbos, hotels, freight, creative destruction, federal reserve, kaletsky, price war, information failure, spain, crude oil, transport, government borrowing, gini coefficient, sony, leverage, migrants, us economy, animal spirits, fishing, stephanie flanders, waste, information, milk, eu enlargement, anchoring, obama, aggregate demand, entrepreneurship society, needs, forecast, internet, discounting, real income, copper, deficit, contestability, nissan, evan davis, companies, fairness, geoff riley, blogging, standard of living, aqa economics, consumer welfare, martin wolf, renewable, labour mobility, collusion, imf, fair trade, pubs, income tax, obesity, res, disposable income, david smith, corus, national debt, devaluation, consumer surplus, vacancies, sub-prime, tariff, global economy, price capping, joint venture, twitter, accelerator effect, startups, guardian, yuan, youth unemployment, immobility, edmund conway, edexcel economics, redundancy, tata, walmart, relative poverty, sentiment, coal, tickets, vehicles, cash, diesel, base rate, russia, liquidity trap, contestable market, marginal cost, external shocks, movies, income elasticity of demand, libor, broadband, fixed costs, comparative advantage, accelerator, allocative efficiency, economic efficiency, pensions, training, king of shaves, satisficing, trend growth, undercover economist, hot money, congestion, price mechanism, deleveraging, positional goods, migration, jobless, social entrepreneur, apprenticeships, hyperinflation, age structure, cyclical, chris coleridge, monopoly power, financial times, ucas, pay cuts, reserve currency, ryanair, wheat, mervyn king, aldi, law of unintended consequences, carbon tax, gillette, deindustrialisation, yahoo, organic growth, barclays, price volatility, derived demand, liberalisation, house prices, richard thaler, royal mail, markets, diseconomies of scale, veblen goods, paul krugman, schumpeter, pension, demography, structural, logging, green revolution, tax burden, savings ratio, ocr, the economist, nhs, job losses, biofuel, drugs, gold, nelson thornes, scotland, cross elasticity, brics, redistribution, footfall, british airways, research, producer welfare, ebea, income distribution, social costs, ft, enterprise, general motors, natural monopoly, tariffs, o2, deforestation, economic welfare, bonds, asda, will king, automatic stabilisers, landfill, economax, energy, long tail, jim o'neill, disincentives, resources, profit margin, podcast, share prices, external shock, slump, philip allan, hedge fund, students, fiscal drag, hysteresis, ftse, elasticity of supply, buy to let, logic of life, contraction, equity, market structure, global business, oil prices, market power, health, ben bernanke, hedging, enlargement, retailing, supply-side, declan curry, nokia, price fixing, chris anderson, bric economies, diane coyle, dynamic efficiency, stimulus, hamish mcrae, toyota, john kay, fiscal policy, winners curse, zimbabwe, compound interest, contestable markets, frictional, rory cellan-jones, status races, claimant count, green shoots, repossession, eastern europe, healthcare, royal economic society, sustainability, public good, credit, superfreakonomics, vertical integration, inflationary pressure, invention, accession countries, probability, sustainable growth, gnp, fairtrade, freemium, g20, affordability, nairu,All tags
ECONOMICS TEACHER RESOURCE NEWSLETTER
Join over 4,000 other Economics Teachers in the UK and around the world who receive the tutor2u Economics Resource Email newsletter. Get special offers, first news of latest resources, teaching ideas, conferences and workshops.
Recent Threads on the Economics Teacher Discussion Forums:
Posts in: General Economics Teaching
Video Case-study - lunchtime prices slashed
Long Exam Example to Use for Revision Please?
Good hotel in London for school trip
Competitive Markets
Diminishing Returns
Complementary goods - HELP Please!
URgent Help Needed
Equilibrium concept
The price of life
Extended Project Qualification
