MineZone Wiki

ideas:

ADD

• http://wiki.scrums.org/index.cgi?HowToGenerateWikiTraffic
• tell them what you told them

Intro
"Wikis and how they stack up to similar tools."

• Features
• Advantages & Disadvantages
• Uses
• Q&A

What Is A Wiki?

• collaborative website anyone can update (web server program that allows multiple users to collaborate on a web site by allowing any user to create or edit any page)
• pronounced "wickie"
• wikiwiki is Hawaiian for quick
• both the software & the site (the software is sometimes called the wiki engine)

Key Wiki Features (separate slide for each):

• edited using standard web browser (mention wiki sandbox)
• simple, full featured syntax (ordered lists, unordered lists, tables, etc.)
• automatic linking of WikiWords (also mention free linking)
• change tracking

Key PmWiki Features:

• easy to set up, maintain, & upgrade (simple text files to back up, no database; easy searching)
• security enhancements: password protection & email notification (can restrict viewing and/or editing)
• flexible page grouping (eases password administration)
• file attachments
• open source (actively developed and frequently updated)

Wiki Disadvantages:

• text-centric (graphics and attachments are possible, but not central to the design)
• not portable (in contrast to books, not skimable, but in a *computer* lab, that is not as important)
• anyone can edit it (but that can be balanced by password protection and/or monitoring)
• renaming or moving pages is cumbersome

Advantages Over Other Tools

• cheap
• easy to learn
• more up to date
• collaboration (benefit of multiple points of view; time flexible [out of sync])
• searchable
• no bottlenecks

Wiki Uses

• project management
  • announcements
  • to-do lists & status summaries
  • meeting agendas & notes
• documentation
• collaboration

Questions

For More Information (include on handout)

• Interesting Wikis
  • PmWiki
  • Original Wiki
  • Wikipedia
  • World66
• Wiki Engines
• Wiki Way
• Article Links
  • My Brilliant Failure: Wikis In Classrooms

Thanks to:

• Bob
• George
• David
• Garrod
• Photo Credit

TO DOs?

• turn on includes
• create an includes page of all the slides (& annotate with notes)

• use Hawaii theme
• talk about advantages over old lab manual
  • easier to update
  • easier to keep up to date
  • no bottleneck
  • searchable
• disadvantage
  • not printed (not easy to skim or read away from the computer)
• getting "buy in"
  • email page URLs? instead of info
  • create page shells and ask others to fill in the blanks

Wiki introduction

• what is a wiki?
  • "The simplest online database that could possibly work."
  • "wiki wiki" is Hawaiian for "quick"
  • collection of Web pages which can be edited by anyone, at any time, from anywhere
    • with exceptions
  • easy formatting
    • power of hypertext w/o HTML
  • available anywhere
  • notebook
  • easy collaboration
  • what is a wiki NOT?
    • ~ a single piece of software
    • ~ a single site
      • ~ wikipedia
  • text-centric
• why pmwiki over other wikis?
  • easy to set up
    • no database necessary
  • clean look
  • password protection
  • groups
  • revision tracking
  • mail notification
  • active development & support
  • easy searching
• wiki concepts
  • sandbox
  • basic editing
    • starting a new page
      • wiki words (CamelCase?)
      • free links
    • TextFormattingRules?
    • separate paragraphs with blank lines
    • creating ordered and unordered lists
    • ~ Tips for editing
  • adding attachments
  • erasing a page
  • ~ editing customs
• cons
  • no-CSS
    • to be added in 6.0
  • no simultaneous edits
    • to be added in 6.X
  • moving/renaming pages cumbersome
  • no authorship tracking
    • to be added in 6.0
• possible uses
  • classroom collaboration
  • easy to format course documentation
• presentation
  • have a clear conclusion
  • Arial, Verdana or Helvetica rather than Times New Roman. 28+ pt for body text.
    • Serif (Times New Roman & Georgia) are easier to read for large amounts of text. Sans serif (Arial and Verdana) are cleaner & tend to make better titles and headlines
    • Verdana, Tahoma, and Georgia fonts are designed specifically for online viewing
  • Maintain the same font and relative size for text objects in each slide.
    • Stay Consistent
      • Title, Title, Title, Title…..
        
      • Body text, body text, body text…
        
  • replace complete sentences with bullet points
  • 666 rule
    • <= 6 words/bullet, 6 bullets/image, & 6 word slides in a row. Any more words per bullet & you don't have a bullet. More than 6 bullets per slide are difficult to read. By the end of 6 text filled slides you have been talking for about 10 minutes without a visual.
  • Have a blank slide or two at the end
• attributes
  • ease of use
  • collaboration
  • openness
• What have wikis done for me lately?
  • reduce bottleneck