An Article Start to Finish: About Working in a Wiki

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Week 1

Learning Objectives

After completing this lesson the participants will:

  1. Understand the concept of a wiki
  2. Have created their personal User page
  3. Be proficient in using MediaWiki search functions
  4. Can determine strong keywords for use in their topic article
  5. Begin to gather information to publish your own article to the in the CoP or Collaborate wiki
  6. Post suggested article titles on their User page

Introduction to the Lesson

Welcome! To get started on our seminar series, please click Play below and watch the introductory video segment.

You do not have the Flash plugin installed, which means you are missing out on great interactive content. Download Flash.

Start to Finish Welcome Video

(Transcript: Welcome to MediaWiki: An Article Start to Finish Seminar Seriers)

Demonstrations and Learning Activities

Your User Page

We want you to get right in there and do something in the wiki, so next you'll be creating your User page. The following screencast (Screencast 1) will give you the step by step overview so you can get the idea of why this is a good thing to do as you get started. This fits right in with the first Hands-On Activity below.

Screencast 1: Creating Media Wiki User Pages - (Transcript: Creating Media Wiki User Pages)

Hands-on Activity

  1. After watching the screencast on creating a user page, login to the Collaborate wiki and create and edit your user page. Keep it simple. You can flesh it out and organize it later.
  2. Go to another participant's user page and leave them a welcoming note
Q & A
Q: How do you find another person’s user page to leave them a message or comment?
A: Good Question! There's a link from the Seminar Series' main page to "An Article Start to Finish Participant User Pages". That's a list of the participants who have User pages so far. You can click on any one of those to see their User page... Who they are, contact info, etc. Once there, you may (in the right navigation) click on Discussion to get to their Talk page. Hope this helps!
Q: I have a user page if I click on my icon but am not on your list. chayhoe
A: You've been added! --Bnr1 17:58, 7 November 2006 (EST)
Q: I have a user page, but my name is not hotlinked to my user page, not sure why? thanks, Mary Meyer
A: It's been linked now. --Kevin 20:24, 12 November 2006 (EST)
Q: When I went to the link for the user participants page, it was blank with no user pages.
How do I get to other user pages to leave them a note as directed in #2 of the first hands-on activity? --Kurtrowe 11:21, 12 February 2007 (EST)
A. We manually add each participant's user page to the list. You've been added now! However, you're the first... so you'll want to watch for more participants to show up on the list.--Bnr1 11:29, 12 February 2007 (EST)

Searching and Titles (and how they fit together)

While we know you're anxious to get started on that article you'll be working on... before you dive in, it's important to give it some thought... The best title for your content is key to having others be able to find it! Watch Screencast 2 for ideas on all that... finding stuff in a wiki and some key things to think about for next week.

Screencast 2 (part 1): Titles and Why They Matter: MediaWiki Searching - (Transcript: Titles and Why They Matter (part 1)
 Screencast 2 (part 2): Titles and Why They Matter: Search Engines (part 2) - (Transcript: Titles and Why They Matter (part 2)

Hands-on Activity

  1. Search and otherwise wander around on Wikipedia paying attention to article titles and the first paragraph of those articles. Think about your article and what keywords might be appropriate to use to describe it.
  2. Once you have those words, go to your favorite search engines such as: Google, Yahoo, Live Search (MSN) and do some searches using those words. Did it return what you were looking for on the first page of search results? If not, try some different words until you find exactly the information you thought you would find. Optional: here's a nifty little tool where you can try out some words and it will tell you which ones are used the most by people when doing Google searches - http://www.tele-pro.co.uk/scripts/google/popularity.asp. Try a search using synonyms such as teenager, teen, and adolescent. When you create your titles you want to use the most popular words you can.
  3. After refining your search terms, place a proposed title for your article on your user page. Include the keywords you think people would use to find your article. You will create this page in next week's lesson.
Q & A
Q: I have been through part of the seminar and created my user page information. My question about the article is- do we need to stay on topic within our subject matter area or is this more of an exercise to learn how to create and post?
A: Our hope is that the article you create during this class would have real value. So, something in the topic of your subject matter expertise seems like it would be most likely to have value. We don't want to ask participants to just do "busy work" and have no article of real value to show for their 6 weeks of learning.
So... Plan your article as you think would have the most value to you in the long run. It doesn't need to be a broad topic at all... Perhaps there is some narrow topic that is of current interest that you could share with others in Extension. Hope this helps!

If you want to learn more

What is a wiki?

Wiki 
A collaborative Web site whose content can be edited by anyone who has access to it. The term comes from the Hawaiian word wiki-wiki which means "quick".

Examples of working wikis

Please go to each of these Web sites and explore:

Please add other wikis that participants might find of interest.

What is MediaWiki?

Mediawiki is the software, originally designed for the Wikipedia projects, that eXtension has adapted as one of its tools for use in its collaborative content development websites.

Check out the MediaWiki page on Wikipedia to learn more.

What to Think About Before you Create a Page

  1. Consider a subject for your article that will be the finished product of this seminar series
    1. Chunk of information - at least 250 words, but can be much longer.
    2. Should have subtopics within
    3. Should have one or more lists (for bullets or numbers)
    4. Should include one or more links to other webpages
    5. Should include one or more multimedia elements, Ex: image, photograph, audio and video
  2. Choosing a title for your article
    1. Use words important to the content
    2. Use words that people would use when searching for information on your topic
    3. Important to be descriptive
    4. Avoid slang or catchy terms
    5. Strength of key words

Check out these thoughts on Wikis That Work

Handy Links for eXtension Beginners by Ann LaVigna during the November 2006 seminar series has great info! Check it out!

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