[Using Sakai] [Management] Looking for feedback on a proposal for a new Wiki integration effort

[Sean Keesler]

Just an offhand comment about the formatting control vs. separation between
content and presentation...

I've run across cases (particularly when students are creating portfolio
content) when students want to compare/contrast between THIS and THAT. This
is often best expressed by formatting THIS and THAT in way that juxtaposes
two sets of content. Students and faculty can get really frustrated when
there is no convenient way for them to accomplish their goals without
learning "advanced" features of either the chosen editor or HTML source
code. They get creative with WYSIWYG controls to create the presentation
layer that is actually very closely tied to the content.

It would be great to be able to simply facilitate that sort of presentation
layer in a way that is easy to use for students/faculty without them having
to create the markup mess that results from most WYSIWIG editors.

Sean Keesler
130 Academy Street
Manlius, NY 13104
315-682-0830
sean.keesler at threecanoes.com



On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 5:44 PM, Bruce D'Arcus <bdarcus.lists at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 4:58 AM, John Norman <john at caret.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> ....
>
> > Personally, I would be more inclined to to develop the entity-picker and
> page authoring Proof of Concept we did for Sakai 2 as part of the groundwork
> for Sakai 3. This connects with Chuck Hedrick's course builder work. My
> reason is that most people don't use a wiki because they want to use a wiki,
> they use it because they want to create html pages in the system for their
> audience to read and they want those html pages to be able to incorporate
> content from within Sakai and from outside Sakai.
> >
> > We have had a few people saying they want their students to become
> familiar with wiki syntax, but generally they just want to create pages.
>
> Based on my own experiments in two classes this term (one of about 45
> students, and another about 85), I think the aspects of wikis that
> show huge pedagogical potential are primarily in the area of
> collaborative web authoring, which is more than just individual users
> creating pages.
>
> So "wiki syntax" is only an awkward means to that end.
>
> WYSIWYG interfaces have some advantages in this area, but are often
> implemented in ways that introduce other problems (like, for example,
> blurring structure and presentation, so that most students don't
> bother using heading and other structural paragraph tags, and the
> result is a mess of a site, with accessibility issues, etc.; also, if
> you go this route, you quickly run into students wanting to do more
> than you expect as far as formatting).
>
> One thing that gets in the way of collaborative web editing in the
> classroom is the lack of synchronous editing support in many wikis.
>
> Also, one overlooked advantage of wikis is the ability to
> easily/quickly spin off new, linked, pages. In my wiki assignments,
> for example, I have an explicit rubric category that requires student
> to create links to different projects within the wiki.
>
> The history change tracking can also be really helpful when doing
> assessment.
>
> What I'd ultimately like to see is something like a cross between
> Google Docs's basic synchronous collaborative editing support
> (including the commenting and chat stuff), and the linked page aspects
> of a traditional wiki, but pervasive such that it's just a part of
> "content creation and editing."
>
> Bruce
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