The subject of today's post is wikis. I really enjoyed the Wikis in Plain English video. It all seemed so simple - until I had to deal with editing Wikipedia. Dexter High School did not have a Wikipedia page. Our assignment called for us to create a page if that was the case. I flubbed my first attempt at creating and linking a Dexter High School entry to the Dexter, Michigan entry. I received a couple of warnings from the cluebot editor for my efforts and my "edits" were discarded. Humbled, but undaunted, I decided to copy the markup language syntax from another school's listing and modify the content to match my needs. This worked much better and looks pretty good. At least the cluebot hasn't sent me any additional warnings yet (knock wood). Here are the screen shots for my adding a "Education" heading to the Dexter, Michigan entry and the actual entry I then created. Not gripping narrative, but now I have a better feel for Wikipedia.
Creating
my own wiki was much more fun. I'm not exactly sure what I will do with it at this point but I have experimented with adding pages, incorporating links, and adding graphics.
If you have been kind enough to read this far then you receive the bonus comments on the podcast feed. This should have been a simple task. However, every podcast site that I thought looked interesting was either just pushing single downloads or hadn't published anything in about year. After rejecting many sites I finally came upon "
This Week at NASA" and added it to my iGoogle page.
Creating my own wiki was much more fun. I'm not exactly sure what I will do with it at this point but I have experimented with adding pages, incorporating links, and adding graphics.
Hi Jeff! Great job! You did it! I will be working on mine soon and have no idea what I am doing. I hope it goes a little more smoothly. Heather
ReplyDeleteHey Jeff,
ReplyDeleteI had similar trouble with Wikipedia and just ended up updating our school profile. I never plan to use Wikipedia so I had trouble rationalizing why I should reinvent the wheel. Plus, the old Lakeview High School page was taken down because of unauthorized content usage...I am a little skeptical to post anything now on Wikipedia. I like mine better on Wikispaces anyway and I agree it has a much easier interface!
I too was dissappointed at the podcast feeds. Even Discovery Channel was old, old, old. The link the course gave us gave me nothing useful either...oh well.
-Jeff V.
I got a good chuckle on this. I don't think I have ever had the cluebot get me : )
ReplyDeleteI love the common craft videos. I use them to introduce web 2.0 items all the time.
Wiki markup is tough to get used to. Like any other coding it's a language in its own. Wiki spaces is cool because you can toggle between markup and the visual editor which no doubt makes life a little easier if you just want to edit text.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback on my posts. I've enjoyed reading your reflections as well :)
Nice job problem-solving and deciding to make changes to existing markup. This is a great way to scaffold your own learning :)
ReplyDelete