EDT4OL/Intermediate wiki skills/Pedagogical templates

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The Mediawiki software has a powerful feature called templates, which enables more advanced features to help manage the layout and structure of elements more consistently in the wiki. So, for example, a template can be created to manage the display of a feature on a particular page in the wiki. Every time the template is used on any page in the wiki, it will re-produce the layout features defined in the original template without the need to code the wiki text on the page where it is used.

The layout for the Mini-challenge, Purpose, and Stimulus resources on this page was created using this pedagogical template feature.

Don't worry! In this course, you are not required to code new templates. You will be using templates we have already created. We will show you how to use a number of popular templates in WikiEducator. They are very easy to use once you know how. It's a simple process of:


 * 1) Copy the wiki text for the template
 * 2) Paste this on the page where you would like to use it
 * 3) Edit and customise the content of the template in the wiki

In WikiEducator, we use pedagogical templates to manage the layout and display of a range of pedagogical forms: objectives, case studies, reading activities, etc. We call these 'instructional devices' (or iDevices for short). Historically, the idea of isolating the iDevices of learning content was a primary aspect of the eXe Project, an open source development project, and the concept has been retained in WikiEducator.

A pedagogical template associates an icon with the type of activity and applies a distinctive layout to differentiate iDevices from normal body text. Consequently, templates provide a way to manage structure and form on wiki pages in a consistent way, not unlike styles used in word processing.

Step 1: Create a practice page for pedagogical templates
Create a subpage from your Sandbox page to practise editing pedagogical templates.


 * 1) Log in to WikiEducator and go to your Sandbox page
 * 2) Click on the edit link, then add a subpage for pedagogical templates using the following syntax:  . (Make sure that there is a " " (forward slash)  before and after the wiki page name. This is a shortcut for creating sub-pages from a parent page)
 * 3) You should see a red link for a new 'Pedagogical template' page which is a placeholder for creating the new subpage below

Step 2: Copy the wiki text for a pedagogical template
In wiki text, the beginning of a template is indicated by two curly braces like this  and is closed using two curly braces like this. These curly braces instruct the wiki software to apply the specified template's formatting, in our case the template called IDevice.

The pedagogical templates also support parameters. These are variables using pre-defined text phrases for manipulating the behaviour of the template. Each parameter is signaled by a vertical bar like this " " followed by the name of the parameter. The variable text is entered after the equals sign (" "), which will be explained in Step 3 below.

All you need to do is to highlight and copy the wiki text for the template in the box below:

Step 3: Paste the wiki text for the template on your page

 * 1) Go to your Sandbox page and click on the red link for the 'Pedagogical template' subpage to create this new page
 * 2) Paste the wiki text you copied from Step 2 above onto this page
 * 3) Remember to save your page

If you have done this correctly, you should see the following example after you save the page:

Step 4: Edit and customise a pedagogical template
Theme, type, title, and body are parameters you can use for editing and customising your template. The parameter names are case sensitive and, in the case of pedagogical templates, they are all lower case. They will not function properly if, for example, you use "Theme=" instead of the lowercase "theme". The list below provides a summary of the parameters and options.

Tasks

 * 1) Consult the list of options in the Quickstart guide and choose a 'type' of pedagogical template you can include in your online learning materials (for example: "Objectives")
 * 2) Prepare some draft text to provide learner instructions for the iDevice you have chosen
 * 3) Go to the Sandbox page you created in Step 2 above, and open the 'Pedagogical template' subpage in edit mode to start populating the variables of the Wiki markup you copied in Step 3
 * 4) Enter the type variable from the list after the " " parameter, for example: " "
 * 5) After the " " parameter, enter the body text you prepared to provide instructions for your learners
 * 6) Click on save to see what your template looks like in published view
 * 7) Now change the title for your iDevice, providing alternate text after the " " parameter; This demonstrates how you can change the default heading text associated with each icon in the style
 * 8) Experiment creating a few different iDevices from list of options