[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
I tried the editor and it looks good. Two limitations I did see with it. First is that formulas require TeX markup, which would be difficult for newbies. And the second is the ability to insert characters such as Greek letters. Also I had no problem switching between wiki markup and the rich text editor. Even though it appeared to remember which I used last, is there a way to set the default through the preferences? John http://www.wikieducator.org/User:JohnWS http://johnsearth.blogspot.com From: Savithri Singh singh.savit...@gmail.com To: wikieducator@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, September 27, 2009 2:18:37 PM Subject: [WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator Hi Wayne, I did. Works fine. Am happy - am sure can get more people to contribute to WE this way. Savithri 2009/9/27 Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com Hi Savithri, I agree -- I think this additional option will expand participation in our project. If you like, you can test and see how this WYSIWYG editing works by visiting the MediaWiki+FCKeditor project. Create an new account on this wiki and test the editor by clicking the edit tab using the sandbox on this wiki: http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net/Sandbox Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 Savithri Singh singh.savit...@gmail.com Dear Wayne, Then I see no reason why we should hesitate to switch. WE `are only providing an additional option. Cheers, Savithri 2009/9/27 Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com Good qeustion Savithri The FCKeditor extension for Mediawiki converts the text into wiki syntax :-), which means that users can still continue editing in the conventional way. Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 Savithri Singh singh.savit...@gmail.com Dear Wayne, WYSIWYG will definitely be useful for people who are diffident of working with syntax - it will help more people to contribute to WE. Tell me something - if a page is created via WYSIWYG then later can we edit it our conventional way? Then even embedding templates can ebe done. Allowing WYSIWYG is a great initiative. Savithri 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Hello Everyone, Well, since my interest lies in active learning and engaging learners, I would like invite those with common interests to join me in brainstorming to find ways to engage members of the community. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:35 AM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nellie Would always welcome another 11,000 active members :-) Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Wayne, You are very modest about the amount of work you put into making things happen on WE. I would like to invite the over 11,000 members of WikiEducator to become active participants. There is a great deal each of us can do to share the load and show the world that WE is an active community that is bringing education and learning to everyone on the planet. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:08 AM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nellie, Thanks for the kind words :-) -- but it's not just me. We have a sterling team of volunteer techies with folk like Jim and Wen-Chen watching over smooth operations of our web sites and future technology deployments, we also have a team of WikiEDTech advisers plus the folk over at Athabasca University preparing for the migration of the servers. We have funders like the NZ Ministry of Education and Hewlett who are helping us spread the reach of OER across the planet. We shouldn't forget our committment to transparent and democractic governance models with a team of 25 international open education professionals who volunteer time ensuring the stewardship of good governance. Above all -- the thousands of educators who spend hours working on OER in WikiEducator. That said -- the independance we now have with the OER Foundation (see: http://tinyurl.com/nnqg9e) gives us greater flexibility and agility than was possible working under an intergovernmental agency. We still have lots of work to do -- but have a very solid foundation for scalable growth. Our next step is to figure out the best way to implement the embedding of third party media (like video, slideshows etc) and this is high on our list of priorities. The question of embedding third party media is not so much a technical barrier, but more a question of free content licensing
[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
Dear Wayne, Then I see no reason why we should hesitate to switch. WE `are only providing an additional option. Cheers, Savithri 2009/9/27 Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com Good qeustion Savithri The FCKeditor extension for Mediawiki converts the text into wiki syntax :-), which means that users can still continue editing in the conventional way. Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 Savithri Singh singh.savit...@gmail.com Dear Wayne, WYSIWYG will definitely be useful for people who are diffident of working with syntax - it will help more people to contribute to WE. Tell me something - if a page is created via WYSIWYG then later can we edit it our conventional way? Then even embedding templates can ebe done. Allowing WYSIWYG is a great initiative. Savithri 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Hello Everyone, Well, since my interest lies in active learning and engaging learners, I would like invite those with common interests to join me in brainstorming to find ways to engage members of the community. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:35 AM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nellie Would always welcome another 11,000 active members :-) Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Wayne, You are very modest about the amount of work you put into making things happen on WE. I would like to invite the over 11,000 members of WikiEducator to become active participants. There is a great deal each of us can do to share the load and show the world that WE is an active community that is bringing education and learning to everyone on the planet. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:08 AM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nellie, Thanks for the kind words :-) -- but it's not just me. We have a sterling team of volunteer techies with folk like Jim and Wen-Chen watching over smooth operations of our web sites and future technology deployments, we also have a team of WikiEDTech advisers plus the folk over at Athabasca University preparing for the migration of the servers. We have funders like the NZ Ministry of Education and Hewlett who are helping us spread the reach of OER across the planet. We shouldn't forget our committment to transparent and democractic governance models with a team of 25 international open education professionals who volunteer time ensuring the stewardship of good governance. Above all -- the thousands of educators who spend hours working on OER in WikiEducator. That said -- the independance we now have with the OER Foundation (see: http://tinyurl.com/nnqg9e) gives us greater flexibility and agility than was possible working under an intergovernmental agency. We still have lots of work to do -- but have a very solid foundation for scalable growth. Our next step is to figure out the best way to implement the embedding of third party media (like video, slideshows etc) and this is high on our list of priorities. The question of embedding third party media is not so much a technical barrier, but more a question of free content licensing and open file formats. Increasingly, video hosting sites now provide functionality to tag user rights -- for example Creative Commons Licenses. In an ideal world, we would want the capabilities for WikiEducators to have access to editable versions of the video files in open file formats. We're certainly a lot closer to achieving this goal today than we were a year ago. Watch this spaces -- pretty soon we will be able to embedd video from third party sites in ways which align with our community values! Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Excellent progress, Wayne. I am very impressed by the amount of work and progress you are making to make things happen on WikiEducator and implementing WYSIWYG. I wonder if adding the editor would also allow publishers to embed html codes for videos. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 7:27 PM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone, For sometime our Community has requested that we implement a WYSIWYG editor in WikiEducator. Many
[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
Hi Savithri, I agree -- I think this additional option will expand participation in our project. If you like, you can test and see how this WYSIWYG editing works by visiting the MediaWiki+FCKeditor project. Create an new account on this wiki and test the editor by clicking the edit tab using the sandbox on this wiki: http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net/Sandbox Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 Savithri Singh singh.savit...@gmail.com Dear Wayne, Then I see no reason why we should hesitate to switch. WE `are only providing an additional option. Cheers, Savithri 2009/9/27 Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com Good qeustion Savithri The FCKeditor extension for Mediawiki converts the text into wiki syntax :-), which means that users can still continue editing in the conventional way. Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 Savithri Singh singh.savit...@gmail.com Dear Wayne, WYSIWYG will definitely be useful for people who are diffident of working with syntax - it will help more people to contribute to WE. Tell me something - if a page is created via WYSIWYG then later can we edit it our conventional way? Then even embedding templates can ebe done. Allowing WYSIWYG is a great initiative. Savithri 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Hello Everyone, Well, since my interest lies in active learning and engaging learners, I would like invite those with common interests to join me in brainstorming to find ways to engage members of the community. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:35 AM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nellie Would always welcome another 11,000 active members :-) Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Wayne, You are very modest about the amount of work you put into making things happen on WE. I would like to invite the over 11,000 members of WikiEducator to become active participants. There is a great deal each of us can do to share the load and show the world that WE is an active community that is bringing education and learning to everyone on the planet. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:08 AM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nellie, Thanks for the kind words :-) -- but it's not just me. We have a sterling team of volunteer techies with folk like Jim and Wen-Chen watching over smooth operations of our web sites and future technology deployments, we also have a team of WikiEDTech advisers plus the folk over at Athabasca University preparing for the migration of the servers. We have funders like the NZ Ministry of Education and Hewlett who are helping us spread the reach of OER across the planet. We shouldn't forget our committment to transparent and democractic governance models with a team of 25 international open education professionals who volunteer time ensuring the stewardship of good governance. Above all -- the thousands of educators who spend hours working on OER in WikiEducator. That said -- the independance we now have with the OER Foundation (see: http://tinyurl.com/nnqg9e) gives us greater flexibility and agility than was possible working under an intergovernmental agency. We still have lots of work to do -- but have a very solid foundation for scalable growth. Our next step is to figure out the best way to implement the embedding of third party media (like video, slideshows etc) and this is high on our list of priorities. The question of embedding third party media is not so much a technical barrier, but more a question of free content licensing and open file formats. Increasingly, video hosting sites now provide functionality to tag user rights -- for example Creative Commons Licenses. In an ideal world, we would want the capabilities for WikiEducators to have access to editable versions of the video files in open file formats. We're certainly a lot closer to achieving this goal today than we were a year ago. Watch this spaces -- pretty soon we will be able to embedd video from third party sites in ways which align with our community values! Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Excellent progress, Wayne. I am very impressed by the amount of work and progress you are making to make things happen on WikiEducator and implementing WYSIWYG. I wonder if adding the editor would also allow publishers to embed html codes for videos. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch
[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
Well done, Wayne. Of course it is a very important and valuable step forward for WE. In my opinion Wiki Syntax or a WYSIWYG are only the technical terminologies. The ultimate goal needs to be user friendly which is a never ending process. Is is just a simple strategy. Keep it up. WE is on the right track with this development and dedicated mission. Regards Tj that we should be bold and move forward with the suggestion. On Sep 27, 12:27 pm, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone, For sometime our Community has requested that we implement a WYSIWYG editor in WikiEducator. Many teachers and educators say that wiki text is a barrier to participation. WikiEducator is keen to respond to these requests. To date, we've been holding back on implementing rich text editing for two reasons: - Maturity of the WYSIWYG technology (Most notably issues with templates and large content pages) - A reliable funding source to implement the refinements that will be necessary for an educational wiki The MediaWiki+FCKeditor project has matured considerably over the last 2 years and we believe that it is now feasible to install WYSIWYG editing for WikiEducator. Also, with funding support from the New Zealand Ministry of Education we are now in a position to start work on the implementation of refinements that will be required for educators (for example, pull down menus for our pedagogical templates incorporating text boxes for the different parameters for these templates). We need to cater for two kinds of users: 1) Those (like myself ;-) ) who prefer wiki syntax to rich text editing and (2) those users who would prefer using a WYSIWYG environment. Fortunately -- the FCKeditor enables users to make the choice. Even within the FCKeditor -- there is an option to edit using wiki text. NOTE: Experienced WikiEducators can continue to edit in the usual way -- They will NOT be required to switch over to Rich Text Editing. I propose that we use a phased approach: - *Phase 1*: Install the FCKeditor WYSIWYG editor as an optional user preference. The editor works well for the majority of editing functions, however the implementation for templates is not ideal and could be confusing for newbies. That said, newbies do not typically start using templates until they are more experienced and experienced editor will know how to use templates should they choose to use the RTE option. Therefore, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in holding back on the implementation until we get a better user interface for editing templates. There will be a few pages in WikiEducator where the rich text editor will not work effectively -- for example pages which are largely rendered through templates. On these pages we will turn-off RTE editing. These pages are maintained by experienced editors -- so there shouldn't be any issues in maintaining these pages. During Phase 1, there is a possibility that we will not have WYSIWYG capability for talk pages or the template namespace. - *Phase 2*: Continue with development work regarding the refinements we need for an educational wiki. These enhancements will be released once tested and reliable at a later stage during the project. WikiEducators can test how WYSIWYG editing works using the MediaWiki+FCKeditor project. Create an account and test the editor using the sandbox on this wiki: http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net/Sandbox Please try this out and let us know what you think. Thoughts and suggestions are welcome! I think that this is an important and valuable step for WikiEducator and that we should be bold and move forward with the suggestion. Cheers Wayne -- Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. Board of Directors, OER Foundation. Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator,www.wikieducator.org Mobile +64 21 2436 380 Skype: WGMNZ1 Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups WikiEducator group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to wikieducator@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
Hi All, Great technical innovation. IMHO, what would also help new users, is a better welcome message from WikiAdmin, or WikiEd Admin (vs. Erik Moeller), in a way that is recognizable -- and most typically doesn't route to the trash. When I've trained users, it's quite amazing how many don't get or don't see the registration confirmation message -- because it comes from an unfamiliar source, NOT from WikiEd directly. I understand from Wayne, that this will be fixed when our servers are firmly at Athabasca, but I just want to underline it as a High Priorty too. - Randy On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 6:59 AM, kiwizian kiwiz...@gmail.com wrote: Well done, Wayne. Of course it is a very important and valuable step forward for WE. In my opinion Wiki Syntax or a WYSIWYG are only the technical terminologies. The ultimate goal needs to be user friendly which is a never ending process. Is is just a simple strategy. Keep it up. WE is on the right track with this development and dedicated mission. Regards Tj that we should be bold and move forward with the suggestion. On Sep 27, 12:27 pm, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone, For sometime our Community has requested that we implement a WYSIWYG editor in WikiEducator. Many teachers and educators say that wiki text is a barrier to participation. WikiEducator is keen to respond to these requests. To date, we've been holding back on implementing rich text editing for two reasons: - Maturity of the WYSIWYG technology (Most notably issues with templates and large content pages) - A reliable funding source to implement the refinements that will be necessary for an educational wiki The MediaWiki+FCKeditor project has matured considerably over the last 2 years and we believe that it is now feasible to install WYSIWYG editing for WikiEducator. Also, with funding support from the New Zealand Ministry of Education we are now in a position to start work on the implementation of refinements that will be required for educators (for example, pull down menus for our pedagogical templates incorporating text boxes for the different parameters for these templates). We need to cater for two kinds of users: 1) Those (like myself ;-) ) who prefer wiki syntax to rich text editing and (2) those users who would prefer using a WYSIWYG environment. Fortunately -- the FCKeditor enables users to make the choice. Even within the FCKeditor -- there is an option to edit using wiki text. NOTE: Experienced WikiEducators can continue to edit in the usual way -- They will NOT be required to switch over to Rich Text Editing. I propose that we use a phased approach: - *Phase 1*: Install the FCKeditor WYSIWYG editor as an optional user preference. The editor works well for the majority of editing functions, however the implementation for templates is not ideal and could be confusing for newbies. That said, newbies do not typically start using templates until they are more experienced and experienced editor will know how to use templates should they choose to use the RTE option. Therefore, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in holding back on the implementation until we get a better user interface for editing templates. There will be a few pages in WikiEducator where the rich text editor will not work effectively -- for example pages which are largely rendered through templates. On these pages we will turn-off RTE editing. These pages are maintained by experienced editors -- so there shouldn't be any issues in maintaining these pages. During Phase 1, there is a possibility that we will not have WYSIWYG capability for talk pages or the template namespace. - *Phase 2*: Continue with development work regarding the refinements we need for an educational wiki. These enhancements will be released once tested and reliable at a later stage during the project. WikiEducators can test how WYSIWYG editing works using the MediaWiki+FCKeditor project. Create an account and test the editor using the sandbox on this wiki: http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net/Sandbox Please try this out and let us know what you think. Thoughts and suggestions are welcome! I think that this is an important and valuable step for WikiEducator and that we should be bold and move forward with the suggestion. Cheers Wayne -- Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. Board of Directors, OER Foundation. Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator,www.wikieducator.org Mobile +64 21 2436 380 Skype: WGMNZ1 Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg -- Open Education is a sustainable and renewable resource. Randy Fisher, MA Senior Consultant Facilitator, Intersol Group, Canada
[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
My my, I have tried the editor (http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net/Sandbox) and it is fantastic! A lot of gaps in WYSIWYG from other sites such as wikispaces have been taken care of here. Off course, this is still early stages yet, with need for development of several functions, but i strongly believe that availing this option to all wikieducators will provide a huge competitive advantage to this community. For one, facilitating a WE beginner class will be made far easier especially to a few people who may not-be-so-sure about 'new technology' and/or die hard skeptics. Lets go ahead and start experimenting it on WE if that is technically feasible at the moment. Cheers! Victor. On Sep 26, 4:27 pm, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone, For sometime our Community has requested that we implement a WYSIWYG editor in WikiEducator. Many teachers and educators say that wiki text is a barrier to participation. WikiEducator is keen to respond to these requests. To date, we've been holding back on implementing rich text editing for two reasons: - Maturity of the WYSIWYG technology (Most notably issues with templates and large content pages) - A reliable funding source to implement the refinements that will be necessary for an educational wiki The MediaWiki+FCKeditor project has matured considerably over the last 2 years and we believe that it is now feasible to install WYSIWYG editing for WikiEducator. Also, with funding support from the New Zealand Ministry of Education we are now in a position to start work on the implementation of refinements that will be required for educators (for example, pull down menus for our pedagogical templates incorporating text boxes for the different parameters for these templates). We need to cater for two kinds of users: 1) Those (like myself ;-) ) who prefer wiki syntax to rich text editing and (2) those users who would prefer using a WYSIWYG environment. Fortunately -- the FCKeditor enables users to make the choice. Even within the FCKeditor -- there is an option to edit using wiki text. NOTE: Experienced WikiEducators can continue to edit in the usual way -- They will NOT be required to switch over to Rich Text Editing. I propose that we use a phased approach: - *Phase 1*: Install the FCKeditor WYSIWYG editor as an optional user preference. The editor works well for the majority of editing functions, however the implementation for templates is not ideal and could be confusing for newbies. That said, newbies do not typically start using templates until they are more experienced and experienced editor will know how to use templates should they choose to use the RTE option. Therefore, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in holding back on the implementation until we get a better user interface for editing templates. There will be a few pages in WikiEducator where the rich text editor will not work effectively -- for example pages which are largely rendered through templates. On these pages we will turn-off RTE editing. These pages are maintained by experienced editors -- so there shouldn't be any issues in maintaining these pages. During Phase 1, there is a possibility that we will not have WYSIWYG capability for talk pages or the template namespace. - *Phase 2*: Continue with development work regarding the refinements we need for an educational wiki. These enhancements will be released once tested and reliable at a later stage during the project. WikiEducators can test how WYSIWYG editing works using the MediaWiki+FCKeditor project. Create an account and test the editor using the sandbox on this wiki: http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net/Sandbox Please try this out and let us know what you think. Thoughts and suggestions are welcome! I think that this is an important and valuable step for WikiEducator and that we should be bold and move forward with the suggestion. Cheers Wayne -- Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. Board of Directors, OER Foundation. Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator,www.wikieducator.org Mobile +64 21 2436 380 Skype: WGMNZ1 Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups WikiEducator group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to wikieducator@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
Randy, It is true that this should also be a priority. Providing a 'personality' to WikiEducator will greatly increase the propensity for first time users to stay well after the training periods have ended. Perhaps at another forum, we should further get statistics on how many users have not been back online after the first few days and discuss strategies for encouraging them to call-again. Thanks for this and cheers! Victor. On Sep 27, 5:37 am, Randy Fisher wikira...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, Great technical innovation. IMHO, what would also help new users, is a better welcome message from WikiAdmin, or WikiEd Admin (vs. Erik Moeller), in a way that is recognizable -- and most typically doesn't route to the trash. When I've trained users, it's quite amazing how many don't get or don't see the registration confirmation message -- because it comes from an unfamiliar source, NOT from WikiEd directly. I understand from Wayne, that this will be fixed when our servers are firmly at Athabasca, but I just want to underline it as a High Priorty too. - Randy On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 6:59 AM, kiwizian kiwiz...@gmail.com wrote: Well done, Wayne. Of course it is a very important and valuable step forward for WE. In my opinion Wiki Syntax or a WYSIWYG are only the technical terminologies. The ultimate goal needs to be user friendly which is a never ending process. Is is just a simple strategy. Keep it up. WE is on the right track with this development and dedicated mission. Regards Tj that we should be bold and move forward with the suggestion. On Sep 27, 12:27 pm, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone, For sometime our Community has requested that we implement a WYSIWYG editor in WikiEducator. Many teachers and educators say that wiki text is a barrier to participation. WikiEducator is keen to respond to these requests. To date, we've been holding back on implementing rich text editing for two reasons: - Maturity of the WYSIWYG technology (Most notably issues with templates and large content pages) - A reliable funding source to implement the refinements that will be necessary for an educational wiki The MediaWiki+FCKeditor project has matured considerably over the last 2 years and we believe that it is now feasible to install WYSIWYG editing for WikiEducator. Also, with funding support from the New Zealand Ministry of Education we are now in a position to start work on the implementation of refinements that will be required for educators (for example, pull down menus for our pedagogical templates incorporating text boxes for the different parameters for these templates). We need to cater for two kinds of users: 1) Those (like myself ;-) ) who prefer wiki syntax to rich text editing and (2) those users who would prefer using a WYSIWYG environment. Fortunately -- the FCKeditor enables users to make the choice. Even within the FCKeditor -- there is an option to edit using wiki text. NOTE: Experienced WikiEducators can continue to edit in the usual way -- They will NOT be required to switch over to Rich Text Editing. I propose that we use a phased approach: - *Phase 1*: Install the FCKeditor WYSIWYG editor as an optional user preference. The editor works well for the majority of editing functions, however the implementation for templates is not ideal and could be confusing for newbies. That said, newbies do not typically start using templates until they are more experienced and experienced editor will know how to use templates should they choose to use the RTE option. Therefore, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in holding back on the implementation until we get a better user interface for editing templates. There will be a few pages in WikiEducator where the rich text editor will not work effectively -- for example pages which are largely rendered through templates. On these pages we will turn-off RTE editing. These pages are maintained by experienced editors -- so there shouldn't be any issues in maintaining these pages. During Phase 1, there is a possibility that we will not have WYSIWYG capability for talk pages or the template namespace. - *Phase 2*: Continue with development work regarding the refinements we need for an educational wiki. These enhancements will be released once tested and reliable at a later stage during the project. WikiEducators can test how WYSIWYG editing works using the MediaWiki+FCKeditor project. Create an account and test the editor using the sandbox on this wiki: http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net/Sandbox Please try this out and let us know what you think. Thoughts and suggestions are welcome! I think that this is an important and valuable
[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
WYSIWYG will definitely bring in more WE editing time. On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 4:57 AM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone, For sometime our Community has requested that we implement a WYSIWYG editor in WikiEducator. Many teachers and educators say that wiki text is a barrier to participation. WikiEducator is keen to respond to these requests. To date, we've been holding back on implementing rich text editing for two reasons: - Maturity of the WYSIWYG technology (Most notably issues with templates and large content pages) - A reliable funding source to implement the refinements that will be necessary for an educational wiki The MediaWiki+FCKeditor project has matured considerably over the last 2 years and we believe that it is now feasible to install WYSIWYG editing for WikiEducator. Also, with funding support from the New Zealand Ministry of Education we are now in a position to start work on the implementation of refinements that will be required for educators (for example, pull down menus for our pedagogical templates incorporating text boxes for the different parameters for these templates). We need to cater for two kinds of users: 1) Those (like myself ;-) ) who prefer wiki syntax to rich text editing and (2) those users who would prefer using a WYSIWYG environment. Fortunately -- the FCKeditor enables users to make the choice. Even within the FCKeditor -- there is an option to edit using wiki text. NOTE: Experienced WikiEducators can continue to edit in the usual way -- They will NOT be required to switch over to Rich Text Editing. I propose that we use a phased approach: - *Phase 1*: Install the FCKeditor WYSIWYG editor as an optional user preference. The editor works well for the majority of editing functions, however the implementation for templates is not ideal and could be confusing for newbies. That said, newbies do not typically start using templates until they are more experienced and experienced editor will know how to use templates should they choose to use the RTE option. Therefore, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in holding back on the implementation until we get a better user interface for editing templates. There will be a few pages in WikiEducator where the rich text editor will not work effectively -- for example pages which are largely rendered through templates. On these pages we will turn-off RTE editing. These pages are maintained by experienced editors -- so there shouldn't be any issues in maintaining these pages. During Phase 1, there is a possibility that we will not have WYSIWYG capability for talk pages or the template namespace. - *Phase 2*: Continue with development work regarding the refinements we need for an educational wiki. These enhancements will be released once tested and reliable at a later stage during the project. WikiEducators can test how WYSIWYG editing works using the MediaWiki+FCKeditor project. Create an account and test the editor using the sandbox on this wiki: http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net/Sandbox Please try this out and let us know what you think. Thoughts and suggestions are welcome! I think that this is an important and valuable step for WikiEducator and that we should be bold and move forward with the suggestion. Cheers Wayne -- Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. Board of Directors, OER Foundation. Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org Mobile +64 21 2436 380 Skype: WGMNZ1 Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg -- Warm regards Anil Prasad --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups WikiEducator group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to wikieducator@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
Hi Nellie, Thanks for the kind words :-) -- but it's not just me. We have a sterling team of volunteer techies with folk like Jim and Wen-Chen watching over smooth operations of our web sites and future technology deployments, we also have a team of WikiEDTech advisers plus the folk over at Athabasca University preparing for the migration of the servers. We have funders like the NZ Ministry of Education and Hewlett who are helping us spread the reach of OER across the planet. We shouldn't forget our committment to transparent and democractic governance models with a team of 25 international open education professionals who volunteer time ensuring the stewardship of good governance. Above all -- the thousands of educators who spend hours working on OER in WikiEducator. That said -- the independance we now have with the OER Foundation (see: http://tinyurl.com/nnqg9e) gives us greater flexibility and agility than was possible working under an intergovernmental agency. We still have lots of work to do -- but have a very solid foundation for scalable growth. Our next step is to figure out the best way to implement the embedding of third party media (like video, slideshows etc) and this is high on our list of priorities. The question of embedding third party media is not so much a technical barrier, but more a question of free content licensing and open file formats. Increasingly, video hosting sites now provide functionality to tag user rights -- for example Creative Commons Licenses. In an ideal world, we would want the capabilities for WikiEducators to have access to editable versions of the video files in open file formats. We're certainly a lot closer to achieving this goal today than we were a year ago. Watch this spaces -- pretty soon we will be able to embedd video from third party sites in ways which align with our community values! Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Excellent progress, Wayne. I am very impressed by the amount of work and progress you are making to make things happen on WikiEducator and implementing WYSIWYG. I wonder if adding the editor would also allow publishers to embed html codes for videos. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 7:27 PM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone, For sometime our Community has requested that we implement a WYSIWYG editor in WikiEducator. Many teachers and educators say that wiki text is a barrier to participation. WikiEducator is keen to respond to these requests. To date, we've been holding back on implementing rich text editing for two reasons: - Maturity of the WYSIWYG technology (Most notably issues with templates and large content pages) - A reliable funding source to implement the refinements that will be necessary for an educational wiki The MediaWiki+FCKeditor project has matured considerably over the last 2 years and we believe that it is now feasible to install WYSIWYG editing for WikiEducator. Also, with funding support from the New Zealand Ministry of Education we are now in a position to start work on the implementation of refinements that will be required for educators (for example, pull down menus for our pedagogical templates incorporating text boxes for the different parameters for these templates). We need to cater for two kinds of users: 1) Those (like myself ;-) ) who prefer wiki syntax to rich text editing and (2) those users who would prefer using a WYSIWYG environment. Fortunately -- the FCKeditor enables users to make the choice. Even within the FCKeditor -- there is an option to edit using wiki text. NOTE: Experienced WikiEducators can continue to edit in the usual way -- They will NOT be required to switch over to Rich Text Editing. I propose that we use a phased approach: - *Phase 1*: Install the FCKeditor WYSIWYG editor as an optional user preference. The editor works well for the majority of editing functions, however the implementation for templates is not ideal and could be confusing for newbies. That said, newbies do not typically start using templates until they are more experienced and experienced editor will know how to use templates should they choose to use the RTE option. Therefore, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in holding back on the implementation until we get a better user interface for editing templates. There will be a few pages in WikiEducator where the rich text editor will not work effectively -- for example pages which are largely rendered through templates. On these pages we will turn-off RTE editing. These pages are maintained by experienced editors -- so
[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
Wayne, You are very modest about the amount of work you put into making things happen on WE. I would like to invite the over 11,000 members of WikiEducator to become active participants. There is a great deal each of us can do to share the load and show the world that WE is an active community that is bringing education and learning to everyone on the planet. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:08 AM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nellie, Thanks for the kind words :-) -- but it's not just me. We have a sterling team of volunteer techies with folk like Jim and Wen-Chen watching over smooth operations of our web sites and future technology deployments, we also have a team of WikiEDTech advisers plus the folk over at Athabasca University preparing for the migration of the servers. We have funders like the NZ Ministry of Education and Hewlett who are helping us spread the reach of OER across the planet. We shouldn't forget our committment to transparent and democractic governance models with a team of 25 international open education professionals who volunteer time ensuring the stewardship of good governance. Above all -- the thousands of educators who spend hours working on OER in WikiEducator. That said -- the independance we now have with the OER Foundation (see: http://tinyurl.com/nnqg9e) gives us greater flexibility and agility than was possible working under an intergovernmental agency. We still have lots of work to do -- but have a very solid foundation for scalable growth. Our next step is to figure out the best way to implement the embedding of third party media (like video, slideshows etc) and this is high on our list of priorities. The question of embedding third party media is not so much a technical barrier, but more a question of free content licensing and open file formats. Increasingly, video hosting sites now provide functionality to tag user rights -- for example Creative Commons Licenses. In an ideal world, we would want the capabilities for WikiEducators to have access to editable versions of the video files in open file formats. We're certainly a lot closer to achieving this goal today than we were a year ago. Watch this spaces -- pretty soon we will be able to embedd video from third party sites in ways which align with our community values! Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Excellent progress, Wayne. I am very impressed by the amount of work and progress you are making to make things happen on WikiEducator and implementing WYSIWYG. I wonder if adding the editor would also allow publishers to embed html codes for videos. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 7:27 PM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone, For sometime our Community has requested that we implement a WYSIWYG editor in WikiEducator. Many teachers and educators say that wiki text is a barrier to participation. WikiEducator is keen to respond to these requests. To date, we've been holding back on implementing rich text editing for two reasons: - Maturity of the WYSIWYG technology (Most notably issues with templates and large content pages) - A reliable funding source to implement the refinements that will be necessary for an educational wiki The MediaWiki+FCKeditor project has matured considerably over the last 2 years and we believe that it is now feasible to install WYSIWYG editing for WikiEducator. Also, with funding support from the New Zealand Ministry of Education we are now in a position to start work on the implementation of refinements that will be required for educators (for example, pull down menus for our pedagogical templates incorporating text boxes for the different parameters for these templates). We need to cater for two kinds of users: 1) Those (like myself ;-) ) who prefer wiki syntax to rich text editing and (2) those users who would prefer using a WYSIWYG environment. Fortunately -- the FCKeditor enables users to make the choice. Even within the FCKeditor -- there is an option to edit using wiki text. NOTE: Experienced WikiEducators can continue to edit in the usual way -- They will NOT be required to switch over to Rich Text Editing. I propose that we use a phased approach: - *Phase 1*: Install the FCKeditor WYSIWYG editor as an optional user preference. The editor works well for the majority of editing functions, however the
[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
Hi Nellie Would always welcome another 11,000 active members :-) Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Wayne, You are very modest about the amount of work you put into making things happen on WE. I would like to invite the over 11,000 members of WikiEducator to become active participants. There is a great deal each of us can do to share the load and show the world that WE is an active community that is bringing education and learning to everyone on the planet. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:08 AM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nellie, Thanks for the kind words :-) -- but it's not just me. We have a sterling team of volunteer techies with folk like Jim and Wen-Chen watching over smooth operations of our web sites and future technology deployments, we also have a team of WikiEDTech advisers plus the folk over at Athabasca University preparing for the migration of the servers. We have funders like the NZ Ministry of Education and Hewlett who are helping us spread the reach of OER across the planet. We shouldn't forget our committment to transparent and democractic governance models with a team of 25 international open education professionals who volunteer time ensuring the stewardship of good governance. Above all -- the thousands of educators who spend hours working on OER in WikiEducator. That said -- the independance we now have with the OER Foundation (see: http://tinyurl.com/nnqg9e) gives us greater flexibility and agility than was possible working under an intergovernmental agency. We still have lots of work to do -- but have a very solid foundation for scalable growth. Our next step is to figure out the best way to implement the embedding of third party media (like video, slideshows etc) and this is high on our list of priorities. The question of embedding third party media is not so much a technical barrier, but more a question of free content licensing and open file formats. Increasingly, video hosting sites now provide functionality to tag user rights -- for example Creative Commons Licenses. In an ideal world, we would want the capabilities for WikiEducators to have access to editable versions of the video files in open file formats. We're certainly a lot closer to achieving this goal today than we were a year ago. Watch this spaces -- pretty soon we will be able to embedd video from third party sites in ways which align with our community values! Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Excellent progress, Wayne. I am very impressed by the amount of work and progress you are making to make things happen on WikiEducator and implementing WYSIWYG. I wonder if adding the editor would also allow publishers to embed html codes for videos. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 7:27 PM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone, For sometime our Community has requested that we implement a WYSIWYG editor in WikiEducator. Many teachers and educators say that wiki text is a barrier to participation. WikiEducator is keen to respond to these requests. To date, we've been holding back on implementing rich text editing for two reasons: - Maturity of the WYSIWYG technology (Most notably issues with templates and large content pages) - A reliable funding source to implement the refinements that will be necessary for an educational wiki The MediaWiki+FCKeditor project has matured considerably over the last 2 years and we believe that it is now feasible to install WYSIWYG editing for WikiEducator. Also, with funding support from the New Zealand Ministry of Education we are now in a position to start work on the implementation of refinements that will be required for educators (for example, pull down menus for our pedagogical templates incorporating text boxes for the different parameters for these templates). We need to cater for two kinds of users: 1) Those (like myself ;-) ) who prefer wiki syntax to rich text editing and (2) those users who would prefer using a WYSIWYG environment. Fortunately -- the FCKeditor enables users to make the choice. Even within the FCKeditor -- there is an option to edit using wiki text. NOTE: Experienced WikiEducators can continue to edit in the usual way -- They will NOT be required to switch over to Rich Text Editing. I propose that we use a phased approach: -
[WikiEducator] Re: WYSIWYG Editor for WikiEducator
Hello Everyone, Well, since my interest lies in active learning and engaging learners, I would like invite those with common interests to join me in brainstorming to find ways to engage members of the community. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:35 AM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nellie Would always welcome another 11,000 active members :-) Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Wayne, You are very modest about the amount of work you put into making things happen on WE. I would like to invite the over 11,000 members of WikiEducator to become active participants. There is a great deal each of us can do to share the load and show the world that WE is an active community that is bringing education and learning to everyone on the planet. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:08 AM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nellie, Thanks for the kind words :-) -- but it's not just me. We have a sterling team of volunteer techies with folk like Jim and Wen-Chen watching over smooth operations of our web sites and future technology deployments, we also have a team of WikiEDTech advisers plus the folk over at Athabasca University preparing for the migration of the servers. We have funders like the NZ Ministry of Education and Hewlett who are helping us spread the reach of OER across the planet. We shouldn't forget our committment to transparent and democractic governance models with a team of 25 international open education professionals who volunteer time ensuring the stewardship of good governance. Above all -- the thousands of educators who spend hours working on OER in WikiEducator. That said -- the independance we now have with the OER Foundation (see: http://tinyurl.com/nnqg9e) gives us greater flexibility and agility than was possible working under an intergovernmental agency. We still have lots of work to do -- but have a very solid foundation for scalable growth. Our next step is to figure out the best way to implement the embedding of third party media (like video, slideshows etc) and this is high on our list of priorities. The question of embedding third party media is not so much a technical barrier, but more a question of free content licensing and open file formats. Increasingly, video hosting sites now provide functionality to tag user rights -- for example Creative Commons Licenses. In an ideal world, we would want the capabilities for WikiEducators to have access to editable versions of the video files in open file formats. We're certainly a lot closer to achieving this goal today than we were a year ago. Watch this spaces -- pretty soon we will be able to embedd video from third party sites in ways which align with our community values! Cheers Wayne 2009/9/27 NELLIE DEUTSCH nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com Excellent progress, Wayne. I am very impressed by the amount of work and progress you are making to make things happen on WikiEducator and implementing WYSIWYG. I wonder if adding the editor would also allow publishers to embed html codes for videos. Warm wishes, Nellie Deutsch Sharing is Caring! Doctoral Student Educational Leadership Curriculum and Instruction Get ready for CO10: http://connecting-online.ning.com/ Free online workshops on WikiEducator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 7:27 PM, Wayne Mackintosh mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone, For sometime our Community has requested that we implement a WYSIWYG editor in WikiEducator. Many teachers and educators say that wiki text is a barrier to participation. WikiEducator is keen to respond to these requests. To date, we've been holding back on implementing rich text editing for two reasons: - Maturity of the WYSIWYG technology (Most notably issues with templates and large content pages) - A reliable funding source to implement the refinements that will be necessary for an educational wiki The MediaWiki+FCKeditor project has matured considerably over the last 2 years and we believe that it is now feasible to install WYSIWYG editing for WikiEducator. Also, with funding support from the New Zealand Ministry of Education we are now in a position to start work on the implementation of refinements that will be required for educators (for example, pull down menus for our pedagogical templates incorporating text boxes for the
