Wikieducator tutorial/Editing report

Report on edit of WikiEducator Tutorials
Liz Ramsay 21.9.2007

I think the tutorials are very useful and well done. I have done an edit for consistency, ease of comprehension, grammar and typos. In addition, I have made summaries of the syntax for each tutorial, which I attach with this report. (This is a bit like a cheat sheet directly related to the tutorials. I originally made it for myself but if you think it’s useful, I could insert it with the faqs either at the very end or at the end of each relevant tutorial. It’d need to be checked for accuracy first.)

Some other suggestions:

Initially I thought a “Getting Started” page might be useful especially for those who have a dial-up connection, but the same outcome could probably be achieved within the tutorials, expecially in the FAQs.

For example, I thought the tip about opening a new tab or browser window could have come earlier. If you agree, I could insert a tip after the activity here, using similar wording: Open a new tab or browser window for your sandbox. (This will allow you to switch between the instructions in the tutorial and the sandbox where you practice using the tools.)

It also might be good if more hands-on activities will be developed for these tutorials. But the whole online training is really excellent. Cecille2274

Additional FAQs
These are elaborations on questions that I had - especially while I was still working over a modem.

Tutorial 1:

Q:	I’m having trouble downloading and opening the exe files over my modem. What is an exe file? What is in these files?

A:	You can find out more by visiting http://exelearning.org/eXe is…. The files show the same information as the tutorial but enable you to work off line (?)

Q:	How do I get an offline version of the multimedia files?

A:

Tutorial 4:	 Basic Text Formatting: Q:	What’s an open line?

Tutorial 6:	Images and media http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/Images_and_Media/Summary These exist on the page but have not been answered. Isn't there a simpler way to add pictures to a document? How can I import an image from the web? What is the maximum file size for a media clip that can be inserted? Can I link to an external image and still have it displayed on the wiki page?

Media Files
Including the size of the files would be useful. If the people providing the audio files have a script, perhaps they could be asked to include it with the audio file so that if you’ve got a dial-up connection you can get the gist of the message anyway. Naming uploaded files. Perhaps a request to try to make file names as meaningful as possible would help when searching the various places they’re stored. And would it be a good idea to keep a note of the names you have used or is that self-evident.

Anchors
Anchors/links to headings aren’t used consistently. (I thought it said somewhere that they could be automated. If you tell me how, I’m happy to do this.) Sometimes they are available on one of the shorter pages:

http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki/Advantages_and_disadvantages but not on some longer ones: e.g. http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/Creating_an_Account/Summary_and_FAQs http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/Basic_Text_Formatting/Bold_Italics_and_Headings http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/New_Pages_and_Links/New_pages http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/New_Pages_and_Links/Internal_links http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/Images_and_Media/Basics

Mac Keyboards (only FYI) Mac users are probably used to being different as the mac keyboard commands and keyboard layout are sometimes different to other computers. (Command instead of control etc and the pipe is in a different place.)