Announcements

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Instructions for Day 2: So what about quality in open wiki authoring?

Dear Friends,

A warm welcome to all our new participants. You still have the opportunity to invite friends to join us, as we are only getting started for the workshop. Some of you have joined us again, and we salute you for this decision. There is a lot to be learned and you are really taking advantage, which is wonderful. Your time commitment per day shouldn't take more than 15 or 20 minutes for new arrivals to catch up. WE are here to share knowledge and to collaborate in the Wiki way, so feel free to spread the word and give the gift of knowledge, and point your friends to this link:

http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C44/About

This email provides a copy of the instructions for Day 2 of our workshop in your inbox. Note that all instructions are linked from our workshop home page:

http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C44/Home (Bookmark this page in your browser).

Remember: if you missed earlier instructions, you will find copies of all activities for the previous day posted in the Announcements box in the wiki.

We see folk are making great progress with the activities for Day 1 ahead of time (in many parts of the world) and are experimenting . Well done!

Get to know your fellow participants and read the introductions posted so far (see: http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C44/Introductions). Wiki's are about experimentation, so be bold and have a bash at posting your own intro. Don't worry, you can't break anything, if you do, WE can fix it (we promise). Wiki's keep a record of every edit, so it is easy to fix a mistakes.

An early heads up,- there are community Kudos awards for the participants with the highest number of edits during the workshop, so get started!

Day 2 is pretty relaxed, you will learn more about the amazing world of wikis, have the opportunity to familiarize with it. Watch our short video introduction and follow the instructions posted in the wiki.

Assignment for Day 2

Your assignment for Day 2 is to post ideas and thoughts in the discussion on quality in open authoring systems. You'll find step-by-step instructions for Day 2 listed on the course schedule page:

http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C44/Workshop_schedule

Enjoy the workshop...
Your International Facilitator Team
Ramesh Sharma, Victor, and Brian

Instructions for Day 3: Personalize your own WikiEducator preferences and complete the online survey

Dear Friends, Greetings.

We hope that now you are gearing up for the workshop as is evident from the userpages and Introductions. Well done!!

Those colleagues are requested to introduce themselves (who are yet to do it) on this page:

http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C44/Introductions

As we expressed that your time commitment per day shouldn't take more than 15 or 20 minutes - hence try to log in to your userpages and carry out the activities as per instructions which are being emailed to you, can be read from the Forum or on the Schedule page:

http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C44/Workshop_schedule

Instructions for Day 3

Day 3 is a relaxed and easy session. There are no online discussion activities for today - so you will have time to catch up on the posts for Day 1 and Day 2 if you've fallen a little behind. If you get stuck or have any questions -- feel free to post these in the wiki discussion forum (http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C44/General_forum).

What you can do now, is to: (a) Work through the instructions (http://wikieducator.org/Help:My_preferences) on how to personalize your own WikiEducator preferences, especially item No. 10 on setting your email notification preferences.

(b) You can specify your default preference for enabling the Rich Editor http://wikieducator.org/Help:My_preferences#.22Misc.22_tab_to_load_the_Rich_Editor_as_your_default

(Avoid changing your skin preference -- it can create problems if you're not sure how to change this back.)

(c) Help WikiEducator keep track of the demographics of our community by completing this short online survey.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Ma4uFnRJxzEU7K1uNnpWKw_3d_3d

We will post a copy of our survey stats in a few days for those who are interested.

In addition to above, you may like to find out more about the charitable work of the OER Foundation:

little -- we practice open philanthropy which means all our planning documentation (even funding proposals) are developed openly and transparently

  • Download a copy of the OER Foundation's annual report (3.8MB).

http://oerfoundation.org/files/OERF-Report_2009-Pre-Audit-version.pdf

Help spread the word. Consider joining as an Donor partner (http://wikieducator.org/OERF:Join) in the capacity of an individual, department or organisation and help make OER futures happen today.

Feel free to email us if you have any questions.

Your International Facilitator Team
Ramesh, Victor, and Brian

Instructions for Day 4 - Achieving your first WikiEducator certification!

Dear Friends
Greetings.

We find that the momentum is gaining now in the workshop. You are beginning to learn and very soon you will be a skilled Wiki User. (Time to achieve WikiEducator Certification!!)

Now we're going to start having fun and you could achieve your first WikiEducator certification! If you’re a little behind, don’t worry….just take it one step at a time as it's easy enough to catch up on the first 3 day's work. We know that you are busy with other competing demands -- but WE are here to help!

Editing on WikiEducator

Have you managed to complete your first edit on your User page? It’s the page that has your User Name – it’s always on the top right of your screen, with a little icon which appears after you have logged in. For some folks, WikiEducator may be 1st website where you have published on the Internet -- celebrate your achievement!


Today we are moving onto the basics of wiki editing, that is formatting text (bold, italics, lists etc). We are also interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas for the content resource you are planning to develop under your learning contract. This will be our discussion activity for today.

  1. Create a sandbox and practice your skills: Read through the activity to create your Sandbox. You can also view the screen cast movie which will show you how to do this. If you get stuck -- let us know by posting your question in the general discussion forum. We are here to help.
  2. Work through the Tutorial using your sandbox to practice text formatting.
  3. Go to your User page start filling out your page. Your wiki certification is determined by demonstrating your skills on your user page and/or sandbox. Be sure to include bold, italics, subheadings and lists on your page so you can qualify for your first WikiEducator community certification :-).
  4. Discuss ideas for your wiki project and sign your online Learning Contract which you will find on your user page. Learning contracts may be scanned and emailed to wikieducator.L4C@gmail.com.

Enjoy!!

Your International Facilitator Team
Ramesh, Victor, and Brian

Instructions for Day 5: Internal and External links

Dear Friends,

Greetings.

As we informed yesterday, we are happy to see the edits on your userpages. Now we move further in learning new skills.

Today we will:

  • Provide an overview of the structure of a wiki;
  • Create internal and external links;
  • Demonstrate how to create a new page;
  • Explain the difference between red and blue internal page links in the published view;
  • Create and edit descriptive labels for your links.

Please go to New pages links for the detailed instructions related to doing above mentioned tasks.

You can also watch the video instruction for Day 5 at this link eL4C44 Workshop schedule

We understand you may have been busy and thus if have fallen a little behind, there is nothing to worry. You are still catch up. See the daily schedule and try to complete the tasks.

If you have questions to ask, please email them, or write on our home pages.

Have a great day!


Your International Facilitator Team
Ramesh, Victor, and Brian

Instructions for Day 6 - Images and your 2nd wiki certification!

Dear Friends,

Time to play with images now!!
Today we will: 

   * Understand about copyright requirements and show you how to find appropriately license free content images;
   * Demonstrate three methods for adding images to your pages;
   * provide an overview of more detailed image formatting options (including placement, frames, thumbs, captions, size etc);
   * practice uploading images into our sandbox and User pages.

Very important thing we would like you to remember that:

  1. Unless stated otherwise, all images you source on the web default to an "all rights reserved" copyright and you cannot upload these images on WikiEducator -- it's illegal.
  2. Read the short summary on copyright in today's tutorial, before uploading images on WikiEdcuator.
  3. You will find more information on what free content means for the WikiEducator community in accordance with our values.

Lets now practice on Instructions for Day 6

After completing the tutorial on images, you will have all the skills you need to develop an impressive user page as well as achieving the certification of a Level 2 WikiApprentice! You should also spend a little time refining the text and layout on your user page. Be sure to include the layout features you have learned so far. That is bold, italics, headings, lists, internal and external links with descriptive names. (Tutorials 2, 4 & 5).

Let's see who will develop the best User page over today and tomorrow. Perhaps one of the participants in this group will become a future recipient of the WikiEducator User Page Expo.

Please remember: You can also watch the video instruction for Day 6 at this link eL4C44 Workshop schedule

Instructions

  • Important -- Read this summary on general copyright issues relating to digital images.
  • Work through Tutorial 6 on images.
  • Practice manipulating the placement, size and using captions for your images in your sandbox.
  • Work on improving your User page -- don't forget to include a photograph of yourself using your new skills on inserting images!
  • Optional: View the following screencast videos: 
         * Screencast A: How to source and link images on Wikimedia Commons
         * Screencast B: Searching for free content images on Flickr
         * Screencast C: Uploading images sourced from Flickr

Have a great day!
Your International Facilitator Team
Ramesh, Victor, and Brian

Instructions for Day 7: Collaborative Editing

Dear Friends,
Greetings.

A note for anyone who may have fallen a little behind, don't give up, the finishing line is in sight! Besides, today is a little more relaxed so use this time to catch up on images. To be fair, images are perhaps the most complicated aspect in the wiki because it involves uploading files to the WikiEducator server. Once you have mastered images you are well on your way to achieving success!

Instructions for Day 7

  1. Today, you should work through Tutorial 7 on collaborative editing where you will learn a few neat tricks on how to monitor activity in the wiki;
  2. You will also learn how to revert an edit which you should practice on your user page.

We're looking forward to our next assignment where we will use one of our communication tools in the wiki. Please do your best to update your user page today as we will ask participants from this group to provide feedback and suggestions on our respective user pages in the wiki using these communication tools.

Suggestion

Several of the learning contract projects listed in the discussion on ideas for Learning Contract projects are open to collaborative edits by course participants. Take a look and join in!

Video Tutorial

Video tutorial for todays session is available here.


Have a great day!
Your International Facilitator Team
Ramesh, Victor, and Brian

Instructions for Day 8: Communication and Interaction

Dear Friends, Greetings.

WE are in the second week of this workshop and hope you are enjoying it. Isn't it?


The workshop is going on well and we are happy to see the progress on your userpages. Some of you have uploaded the photo on their pages and are trying with editing features. Keep experimenting in SandBox in your UserPage.

Today we will: 

   * Learn how we use the Discussion or Talk pages in the wiki,
   * and explore some useful features like the Watchlist, and the My Contributions link.

In other words, We will discuss that is there an easy way to monitor changes to pages you edit? How do we keep track of individual contributions made in the wiki?

Today we will learn and experiment with a few powerful features in the wiki.

Video Tutorial
The video tutorial for today's session is available here

Instructions for Day 8

  1. Work through Tutorial 8 on Communication and Interaction Tools see link
  2. Test the feature of adding a discussion item which relates to a content page in the wiki. See the discussion activity linked to the talk page of our course schedule (this page). You can also access the corresponding talk page by clicking on the "Discussion" tab you see at the top the page in your browser.
  3. Leave a personal message on the User page of at least three different participants who have started working on their user pages. To do this -- you need to go to the respective User Page by clicking on a blue coloured link under the surname of our participant list. Then click on the "Discussion" tab of the User page concerned (top of the page). Comment on something positive you have seen on User Page, particularly if you have some ideas for improvement. If you're do receive a message from one of the participants -- send a reply to by clicking on their User Name which is displayed in the automatic signature below the message.
  4. This best way to keep in touch with the WikiEducator family is to join our main WikiEducator mailing list on Google groups -- Join today to keep up to date with what's happening in our community.

Have fun -- this is a great way to communicate with your fellow WikiEducators!

Have a great day!
Your International Facilitator Team
Ramesh, Victor, and Brian

Instructions for Day 9: How to use discussion pages

Dear Friends,

I hope this finds you all well.

We are very pleased with the enormity of work done so far. We further understand that this workshop is quite unique in a way when most of the participants may either not be educators nor are very comfortable with the PC and internet. This is a great experiment going relatively well. We can sure say that we are very pleased with some of the results we see on your pages.

Based on the nature of this online workshop using only the wiki platform, it is extremely important that you get to know (and love) how to use the discussion pages. As all the online interactions will take place on discussion pages, it is imperative that you are very comfortable with that.

Task for today:

We encourage you to go to your colleague's pages, leave notes there and most importantly be able and comfortable to REPLY to messages instead of editing them.


Have fun -- this is a great way to communicate with your fellow WikiEducators!

Your International Facilitator Team
Ramesh, Victor, and Brian

Instructions for Day 10: Working offline and uploading teaching materials

Dear Friends,

Time flies. Now we are nearing the end of this workshop and many of you have already developed your pages so beautifully. Well done!!

Today we will:

  • Consider options for preparing teaching materials offline
  • Learn how to upload and convert documents saved using your word processor.


In cases where you do not have a reliable or fast Internet connection you may decide to work offline. You may also have a number of lesson plans and teaching materials which you want to convert into wiki format for sharing with other teachers. Today we will test two alternatives for converting and uploading existing documents on WikiEducator.

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Converting an existing document
    • Under the toolbox on the left hand side of your screen, click on the link called OOConvertor
    • Follow the instructions on screen to upload a file from your machine, eg .doc or .odt. (Note: that you should save Microsoft .docx files in the older .doc format.)
    • Select the appropriate license (for example CC-BY or CC-BY-SA) to confirm the permissions for teachers to reuse, adapt, modify and share teaching materials.
    • This web service will convert the file into wiki format and create a new page as a subpage of your Username. You will also receive an email notification when the document is converted. You will now be able to copy this text to any page in the wiki.
    • Note that you will need to upload images separately.
    • It is good practice to use styles for specifying different heading levels in the source document.
  2. Working offline
    • It is possible to work offline and save your work in Mediawiki text format. To do this you will need a copy of the OpenOffice word processor (Free and Open Source Software.)
    • Work through the tutorial demonstrating how to edit using Open Office.

Your International Facilitator Team
Ramesh, Victor, and Brian

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