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Instructions: Day 9

Dear friends,

This is the final despatch of instructions for our eL4C53 workshop. Hope yesterday you enjoyed communicating with fellow WE members through user talk pages.

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.

And finally don’t miss today’s Grand Finale Gala of our eL4C53 at WikiEducator web chat at http://wikieducator.org/cgi-bin/cgiirc/irc.cgi at 9PM IST today (June 15, 2012)...and don’t forget to register for the forthcoming Open content licensing for educators (OCL4Ed)

We, facilitators of the workshop and the entire WikiEducator community are thankful to you for your interest and sincere participation in eL4C53 ...we know - there is no need for formal vote of thanks, because through these events people becomes our WikiEducator family members. Hope to see each one of you facilitating these kinds for workshops for WE family in the immediate future.

Warm regards,

Your facilitators Balqis, Elizabeth, Sebastian and Anil


Grand finale gala at WikiEducator CGI IRC chat: Day 9

Dear friends,

Our eL4C53 will officially conclude tomorrow (June 15, 2012). Let us enjoy a wiki Grand finale gala at WikiEducator’s web chat facility at http://wikieducator.org/cgi-bin/cgiirc/irc.cgi for 45 minutes from 9PM IST on June 15, 2012 to mark the successful completion of the workshop :)

Help for logging in to chat

You might have already noticed the web chat facility of WikiEducator. The link to the chat room can be seen below the community menu at the extreme left side of your WikiEducator window. A click on the web chat link will take you to the chat login page. In the Nick name field give your nickname or first name and click log in. If somebody has already logged in using the nickname you have chosen, don’t worry, try another name.

After clicking log in button please wait a few seconds for the system to initialize and take you to WikiEducator channel.

At the right side of the window you will see the list of members already arrived at the channel. On top you will see two tabs : Status and #wikieducator. #wikieducator will be highlighted and it would mean you are at the #wikieducator channel.

At the bottom of the window you will see the box for entering your text. If you click on the arrow marks << at the right end of the box it will give you tools for bold, underline and text colour.

At the chat room, introduce yourselves, chat with your colleagues, ask last minute queries to your facilitators and what else? …enjoy the Grand finale gala at WikiEducator CGI:IRC chat!!!

…And don’t forget to register for the forthcoming free online workshop - Open content licensing for educators (OCL4Ed) today itself . See http://wikieducator.org/Open_content_licensing_for_educators/About#Register_today_and_share_the_gift_of_knowledge

Warm regards,

Your facilitators Anil, Sebastian, Elizabeth and Balqis


Instructions: Day 8

Dear friends,

Yesterday our facilitator Balqis conducted a wonderful live class on wikieducator at WizIQ. We thank all those participated at the class! These are ways for blending available technologies to better open learning experience. Thank you Balqis!

Following are the instructions for your Thursday. If you joined us recently, you will find the instructions for previous Days on our course home page (in the announcement box). We see quite a few User pages taking shape in the wiki -- We're impressed. Some participants still need to practice their images :-) Over the weekend we will be reviewing your user pages to see who has achieved their 2nd wiki certification -- celebrate your achievements.

Today we'll have a look at how you can leave a message on the talk page in the wiki (that is discussion page associated with every wiki page). Have a bash and leave a message for one or more of the course participants. You will find the instructions under the course contents box on our course home page or you can go directly to the workshop schedule

Tomorrow we'll take things easy and we will show you a cool feature to convert existing lesson plans or resources in standard word processing format into wiki syntax for sharing among educators around the world. OERu anchor partner participants will be encouraged to experiment with pedagogical templates.

Have a great wiki day!


Instructions: Day 7

Dear friends,

These instructions are for your Wednesday. If you joined us recently, you will find the instructions for previous Days on our course home page (in the announcement box).

Some of you have been awarded WikiEducator Apprentice Level 1 certification (a few got even Level 2 Certification)! Congratulations for the excellent beginning. We hope other friends also attain these wiki skill levels today (We see that many participants are well on their way to achieving their 2nd wiki certification and above)

Many educators have questions relating to open editing in wikis -- particularly if someone else makes a change on your page. Today we will learn how you can monitor edits and how to revert edits.

A side 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 on your way to achieving the status of a WikiBuddy in our community!

You'll find a link to the instructions for Day 7 from our course home page or you can go directly to the course schedule Do take a look at the growing number of collaborative project ideas --- jump in an help where you can.

Working together we achieve far more than working alone. Wishing you a great day with WIKI! Warm regards

Your facilitators Anil, Sebastian, Balqis and Elizabeth


Instructions: Day 6

Hope you enjoyed linking pages, both external and internal, and creating new pages, yesterday. For instance you might have linked an internal page on your user page like this

[[Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C53/Home | Home page for eL4C53]] and external link like this [http://www.unesco.org Website of UNESCO]

Note: Internal linking means, creating a hyperlink to a WikiEducator page from another page in the WikiEducator. While adding the wikieducator page address within double squire brackets you need to add the portion that comes after http://www.wikieducator.org/ ONLY. Don't forget to add a vertical bar '|' between the page address and your explanation of the page (like : Home page for eL4C53)

While creating hyperlink to an external page you have to add full address of the external webpage starting from http:// or https:// within single squire brackets and a space between the page address and your explanation of the page - no vertical bar required.

You might have practiced creation of new page as well, by creating a 'My sandbox' page from your user page by adding the syntax [[/My sandbox/]] on your user page in the edit mode. When saved the page you got a red link to your new sandbox page - that was to be created. You clicked the red-link, and your new page opened in edit mode. You added some text on it and saved. Am I right? ....:)

Instructions for day 6


These instructions are for your Tuesday. If you have just joined us, you will find the instructions for previous Days in the wiki (in the announcement box).

Today you will learn how to upload and manipulate images in WikiEducator. After completing today's activities you can qualify for your 2nd community wiki certification.

Please refer to the course contents box from your course home page for Day 6 or you can go directly to the workshop schedule

If you have missed out on a day or two's activities -- not too worry. This is a flexible workshop and all the activities and course materials are accessible from the course page. If you can find an hour or two, you should quite easily be able to catch up and join the leader's board for the highest number of edits during the workshop :-)

As you know, WikiEducator is a free content project - - therefore we can only use images which use open content licenses. You can read more about free content here:

http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_free_content .

I recommend that when you are practicing to upload of images -- choose a photograph which you took. This means you can legally license the content under an open content license. You will asked to choose a license and select a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) or Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license (CC-BY-SA). We don't have enough time in the workshop to cover all the detail on licensing -- that's for an intermediate level course. However, if you are interested we have a tutorial on Creative Commons licenses at http://www.wikieducator.org/Creative_Commons_unplugged/Introduction

In the beginning images may be a little confusing -- remember when uploading images, in most cases the image resides on your local machine and there is a process required to upload this to the WikiEducator servers before they can be viewed by other Internet users. It will make sense when you give this a try -- If you get stuck just ask us in the wiki discussion area -- we are here to help.

Have fun and we look forward to awarding your next WikiEducator certification! (In a day or three depending on where you reside ;-) )

Wishing you a great wiki day!

See you in Wiki!

Instructions: Day 5

Dear friends,

Welcome back from the weekend holidays! It was also encouraging to see that some of you were enjoying the weekend with wiki :)

These instructions are for your Monday. If you have just joined us, you will find the instructions for previous Days in the wiki Course Home (in the announcement box).

Congratulations to those participants who have demonstrated the required skills for a Level 1 WikiApprentice :) Have you achieved the requirements for your first wiki certification?

Visit our wiki participant list to see who is leading the edit count for this workshop ;-) What is your edit count so far?

You should use the skills you learn each day to add information to your user pages. Visit the participant list page and click on the user page links to see what your classmates are doing.

Instructions for Day 5

Day 5 of our workshop will help you to create internal and external links and show you how to create a new page in the wiki. You'll find a link to the instructions for Day 5 on our course on the home page or you can go directly to the course schedule page.

We all have busy schedules, and if you've fallen a little behind - don't worry. It's pretty easy to catch up and Day 5 (Mon) is not as onerous as Day 4 (Sat) - so ample time to catch up. If you have any questions, feel free to post these in the wiki. WE are here to help.

Have a great wiki day!

Instructions: Day 4

Dear friends,

The third day of our workshop was mostly for familiarizing the facilities available with your WikiEducator account. You might have loved to take a newbie survey and come to know about the OER Foundation that administers, this innovative WikiEducator platform for a world of free and open learning. You’ve read more about the WikiEductor and OERF activities in the annual report. Now being a WikiEducator family member, you know your family very well!

Well friends, though it is weekend, we are exploring the possibility of using a few minutes for our open workshop on this Saturday as well. If some of you are on weekend trips, don’t worry, you can rejoin on Monday or at any time of your convenience, because it is Wiki and Open Learning :)

Instructions for the fourth day

Today we'll start experimenting with basic wiki editing on your user page again. You will further learn how to format text using bold, italics, lists, headings and subheadings.

You must demonstrate these skills on your user page or sandbox so you can qualify for your first community certification in WikiEducator :-). To create your sand box type the following syntax on your user page and save.

[[/My sandbox/]]

Once the edit is saved, your page will show the red link to your non-existing page. Now click on the red link, which would open the new page in edit mode. Add your content and save.

Editing is easy using the rich text editor (but we encourage participants to look at how wiki formatting works by clicking on the "Wikitext" icon in the toolbar of the rich editor). After today's session you would cover the skills for your first wiki certification.

You will find a link to the instructions for Day 4 in the course material box of our course home page or you can go directly to the workshop schedule page.

The best way to practice your wiki skills is to find a task or wiki project relating to your real working life. We've posted a few ideas for you to think about and encourage you to sign the optional learning contract (on your user page). We look forward to hearing your thoughts about prospective project ideas in the wiki discussion.

Do take a look at the Instroductions to meet your fellow participants and if you haven't had a chance to post your introduction -- there is no better time than now!

Start working on increasing your edit count in WikiEducator. You can view your edit count in the list of participants and compare your progress with others in the group.

Have a great day! Have a great weekend!

Instructions: Day 3

Welcome to Day 3 of our wiki workshop. These instructions are for your Friday. If you have just joined us, you will find the instructions for previous Days in wiki (in the announcement box).

Friday's activities are purposefully designed to "create" a gap for those who may need a little time to catch up on the first two days work :-). If you've fallen a little behind, we have the advantage of the weekend to catch up. All you will need is about an hour to work through the activities for the first three days.

It's great to see folk experimenting with wiki skills by introducing themselves in the wiki :-) -- Do take a look.

Our introduction page has recorded + 300 page views. Clearly participants are reading our introductions in the the wiki. Don't be shy -- join in and get your feet wet -- post your into. Don't be missed by your absence ;-)

If you get stuck -- just post your question in the general|general wiki forum .

INSTRUCTIONS FOR DAY 3

Today we will show you how to edit your user preferences and ask you to complete our WikiEducator survey for new users -- shouldn't take you more than 10 minutes.

See the instructions for Day

Let us start with viewing a short video by Dr. Wayne

As a wiki workshp, remember the best page to keep track and keep up to date with the workshop is the course homepage

We'll see you in the wiki!

Warm regards

Your facilitators

Anil, Sebastian, Elizabeth and Balqis

Review: Day 2

Hi fiends,


Hope it was/is a great Wiki day for you :)


As usual, let us have a brief and quick review of second day’s learning activities.

  1. Today, most importantly, you might have learnt more about wikis by going through our wonderful lesson Yea, the story of first wiki created by Ward Cunningham’s …how the word wiki originated from "wiki-wiki", the Hawaiian word for quick, …some interesting wiki sites…
  2. Now you know advantages and disadvantages of wikis by going through the lesson on advantages and disadvantages of wikis
  3. You know more about WikiEducator by reading About WikiEducator page.
  4. You’ve posted or planning to post your thoughts, ideas and feedback on the quality of open authoring approaches
  5. If you didn't get a chance yesterday, you might have introduced yourself to the group by posting to our wiki forum today
  6. Still you’ve a query to clear, please ask... Remember the WikiEducator motto: Just try it. Our community will support you!
  7. You might have added more content on your user page

Great day! We have to cover more distances … here comes the “wiki-wiki” bus – you will receive the instructions for 3rd day shortly :)


Your facilitators Elizabeth, Balqis, Sebastian and Anil

Instructions: Day 2

Hi friends,

Welcome to Day 2 of our wiki workshop. These instructions are for your Thursday. If you have just joined us, you will find the Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C53/Announcements#Instructions:_Day_1_instructions_for_Day_1 posted in the wiki.

This email provides a copy of the instructions for Day 2 (your Thursday) of our workshop in your inbox. Note that all instructions are linked from our workshop home page (Bookmark this page in your browser).

Day 2 is also pretty relaxed -- you will learn more about the amazing world of wikis. Watch our short and inspiring video introduction from Dr. Wayne Mackintosh, founder of WikiEducator and follow the instructions posted in the wiki.

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

Get to know your fellow participants and read the introductions posted so far. Wiki's are about experimentation -- 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 its easy to fix mistakes.

Remember, you can also access the course materials directly from the home page for this workshop.


See u in the wiki :-)

Review: Day 1

Dear friends, Hope you enjoyed /are enjoying the first day of our eL4C53 workshop. Before going to the instructions for the second day, let us attempt a brief and quick review of day 1 activities.

  1. You have seen a short video about wiki on youtube
  2. Those who did not have a user account have created a new user account on WikiEducator/ those who already had an account have logged in using the existing account
  3. From the logged in page, you have navigated to your user page by clicking your WikiEducator user name that appeared on top of the window (on your user page, you might have seen some model sections and instructions preset by your facilitator).
  4. You understood that every wiki page has two modes viz Edit Mode and Published Mode. When you click the Edit Button on top of a page, the page opens in ‘Edit Mode’ with an editor window. Only in edit mode you can add or edit content on wiki web pages.
  5. You clicked the Edit button that you have seen either on top of the page or at the right end of the section headings on your page.
  6. After you got the page/section in edit mode, you clicked the link ‘Rich Editor’ that you have seen just above the tool menu of the editor window to activate the Rich Editor and it provided you tools for text editing (like bold, italic etc) , which were very similar to the tools of your favourite text editor.
  7. You have added some text on your user page to introduce you to the WikiEducator family. Made some words bold/italic etc by selecting the text and clicking the related tool on the Rich Editor menu bar as per your choice AND CLICKED THE ‘SAVE’ BUTTON AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE and got your page in published mode.
  8. Again and again you clicked the edit button on top of your page and added more and more content. At times, before clicking ‘Save’ you clicked ‘Show preview’ button, seen the preview of your edit, scrolled down the page and CLICKED THE SAVE BUTTON :)
  9. Finally, you did not forget to introduce you at http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C53/Introductions

THATS ALL FOR DAY 1 – WIKI IS VERY SIMPLE AND FIRENDLY, INDEED! (you know? – wiki is synonymous to ‘QUICK’)

You will receive the instructions for day 2 shortly!

Wishing you a great (wiki) day!


Instructions: Day 1

Dear friends,

WARM WELCOME TO eL4C53!

On our first day we'll get our feet wet and make an edit in WikiEducator. Experiential learning is much more fun (when compared to doing the theory first and practising later). In this workshop we will be using a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor, which is also called Rich Text Editing (RTE). (Tip: We recommend that you open the links below in a new window or new browser tab. Move your cursor (pointer) over the link, click on your right mouse button and select open link in new tab or window. This way you will keep the instructions open in one of your browser windows.)

  1. If you are new to wikis, view a short video called Wikis in plain English at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY - hosted on YouTube.
  2. Login to WikiEducator at http://wikieducator.org/Special:UserLogin. If you don't have an account, you should 'create one now. See guidance for the same at http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_rich_text_editor_tutorials/Creating_an_account/Instructions
  3. Work through Tutorial 3 on the basics of rich text editing available at http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_rich_text_editor_tutorials/Editing_basics
  4. Go to your 'User page, click on the edit link. Type something in the edit window and save your text. (If you're lost for words -- try "Hello world!") . To go to your user page, after logedin to WikiEducator ,click your user name that would appear on top of the Window.
  5. Please introduce yourself to the group by posting to our wiki forum at http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C53/Introductions Don't be noticed by your absence! (Login and click on the edit link and remember to click the save button at the bottom of the page).
  6. If you have any questions or need a little help, just ask us at http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C53/General_forum . Remember the WikiEducator motto: Just try it. Our community will support you!


Wishing you a very pleasant learning and community building time!

With regards

Your facilitators,

Sebastian, Balqis and Anil

Please don't hesitate to email us when you want to clear some doubts on your wiki experiments

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