Digital skills for collaborative OER development/Digital skill challenges/Pedagogical templates

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The Mediawiki software has a powerful feature called templates which enables more advanced features to assist with managing 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 replicate the layout features defined in the original template without the need to code the wiki text on the page where it is used.

Don't worry, in this course you are not required to code new templates. 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 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). 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. (You can find out more about the original project by visiting http://exelearning.org or about ongoing developments of the new eXe.)

Step 1: Copy the wiki text for the 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.

All you need to do is to copy the wiki text for the template highlighted below:

Step 2: Paste the wiki text for the template on your page
Note: You must use wiki text for this to work (not the VisualEditor). Click on the "Edit source" link (not the "Edit" link which is used to launch the VisualEditor).

Paste the copied template syntax (from above) to your personal Sandbox page in WikiEducator. If you have done this correctly, you should see the following example after you save the page:

Step 3: Edit and customise the template
Theme, type, title, and body are parameters you can use for editing and customising your template. The parameter labels are case sensitive and will not function properly if, for example, you use "Theme=". The list below provides a summary of the parameters and options.