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

[Bruce D'Arcus]

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 10:28 PM, Sean Keesler
<sean.keesler at threecanoes.com> wrote:
> 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.

Yes, a tricky problem, though one I think is critical to solve.

There may be hints of a solution in CMSs like WordPress and Drupal,
with flexible layouts and widgets for handling broad content areas
(html divs and such).

OTOH, maybe ability to have flexible paragraph styles could help
within those broad content areas.

Bruce