Hi David, Patricia, Leigh, Steve & Patricia I agree -- rich text editing will lower the barriers of entry for newbies to WikiEducator as well as other initiatives using Mediawiki software.
Dave wrote: >> Are there any plans to change the way in which wiki-editing occurs? Yes -- we are very keen to see rich text editing implemented. In fact this was one of the topics discussed during the Tectonic Shift Think Tank meeting (http://www.wikieducator.org/Tectonic_shift_think_tank) where we started mapping out a road map for refining MediaWiki software for educational purposes. You can view specifics of the discussion over here: http://www.wikieducator.org/Tectonic_shift_think_tank/Tech_requirements/Ease_of_use Mediawiki is a very powerful piece of software -- most notably the ability for individual users to innovate using the template engine. The downside of the template engine is that it increases the complexity for integrating a reliable rich text editor by an order of magnitude. We're always on the lookout for extra budgetary funding to invest in the development of these technologies -- its not a trivial project, but given the demand for rich text editing -- hopefully we will find a solution sooner rather than later. Any rich text editing solution for Mediawiki would need to work with all the big Mediawiki projects like Wikipedia, Wikibooks Wikiversity etc and would need to scale very well. Wikipedia receives up to 40000 hits per second! That's food for WikiEducator because we will benefit from a solution that is both reliable and scalable. Dave wrote: >>I realise that the open-office media-wiki text add-on has made this process significantly easier, but it's still a jump for the general populace. Not an ideal solution -- but has at least widened the range of options for new users. One advantage of the OO approach is that educators can author their first drafts offline. However, they would still need to understand the basics of the Mediawiki syntax. Also -- by the middle of next year, Mediawiki will be able to support output for the Opendoc format. This will enable users to download collections of content from WIkiEducator and then edit these locally in their word-processors. See: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikis_Go_Printable Leigh wrote: >>I see that the skills a teacher acquires by learning to edit Wikieducator are very transferable skills that may see them participating more on other major wiki projects like Wikipedia and Wikibooks, or even their own MediaWiki installation AND >> People like me have become loyal to the MediaWiki.. why is that? I used to desire an easier interface, but now I know enough about MediaWiki to get around, I really enjoy that I can work it and that I can participate on other Wikiprojects... I agree with Leigh, the incidental learning that occurs by engaging in wiki communities is very powerful. Wiki's are more about community than technology -- in some respects, acquiring Mediawiki editing skills and the tacit knowledge of how these communities is a "right-of- passage" to the dynamic and exciting world of wiki's. That said, I would love to see this becoming easier over time so more folk can experience these amazing communities. David wrote: >> I have decided to use WikiEducator as the main platform for building our course. This means that all of my academic staff will need to get familiar with the platform. That's great news! Patricia and I have been running online workshops to help build capacity in basic wiki editing skills and these seem to work rather well. mmmm -- I'm thinking how we can help here. It seems to me that with the growing number of new users, it would be pretty cool if we could have a regular training session each month. We could have a place where newbies could sign up for online training from all over the world. This is a pretty big project and we would need help from volunteers to act as facilitators. Doing the math -- if we can find 12 volunteer facilitators -- we could run at least 12 training sessions and the loads would not be too onerous. Effectively a donation of time to assist with two weeks online facilitation. What do you think? This is an important issue for our community -- lets see if we can come up with an interim solution until the rich text editing matures sufficiently for us to implement this in Mediawiki. Would appreciate your advice and thoughts on this one. Cheers Wayne --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
