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 <[email protected]> > 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 < > [email protected]> 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 >> >> >> > > > > -- 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. 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