MediaWiki Seminar Welcome Transcript

From Extension Collaborative Wiki

Welcome to the six week seminar series, "Working in Mediawik - An Article Start to Finish!

I'm Beth Raney, professional development leader with eXtension. Along with my colleagues, we look forward to working with you over the next six weeks as you learn more about working in the wiki!

A wiki is a type of website that allows a person to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change the content. It is a type of social networking software that places great importance on community building, collaboration, and transparency. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. Our focus will be on wikis as a collaborative space where you can work on a piece of information to share with others in Extension... with the simple premise that if you can get to a web site, you can work in a wiki... if you're so inclined. And that you can edit other people's work if you have something of value to add or change. So you know, however, This is an "enterprise" wiki so no one outside of Extension people will be able to observe your "work-in-progress".

During the six weeks while you're working on this seminar series, we assure you that we intend to keep in touch with you . We invite you to ask any questions, give us comments, suggest changes and enhancements, and bounce your ideas off us. We will be very accessible through a number of communication methods. If you ever have a question or just want to talk we will be available. Some ways we will be able to keep in touch you've probably noticed on the main page for the Start to Finish seminar series. These include:

• The wiki itself - you can ask questions on your personal talk page, or the instructors talk page, or the talk page for each lesson. You'll learn more about that in today's lesson. If you ask a question in the wiki we will see it.
• Send to the class mailing list.
• You might want to install a Jabber instant messaging chat client so you can ask questions or share what you've learned with the instructors or other participants in real time. We have established a chat room for the class and it will be open all the time... visit when you want to ask or share.. or just hangout incase someone else wants to share. It's all about helping each other.
• And perhaps add the "office hours" using Breeze to your calendars in case you have questions or want to share. We'll be there, and you're welcome to come as often as you'd like during those office hours.

Each week the seminar topic will build on the previous one. By building on your working knowledge of the wiki little-by-little we hope that you feel some success as you work Start to Finish on an article that will be useful to you and perhaps others.

Each week the wiki page for that topics's seminar will include three components: objectives, demonstrations and hands-on activities, and a section for if you want to learn more. Every week you will have some activities to complete. These activities are focused on the seminar's overall goal: Completing an actual piece of educational content working the "wiki-way".

We know that you are all busy people and that professional obligations may conflict with your participation in this seminar series. If you will be traveling or otherwise unable to complete a week's activities... just let us know. We would be happy to work with you individually to assist you in catching up. Most important to us is that you all succeed in completing the series.

We're very excited about this seminar series and hope you are too. Learning in a wiki about wikis is an interesting concept. There aren't many previous examples of learning in this manner for us to follow. So in this regard you are pioneers. This is an experiment in learning and we will be learning together. We hope this is an enjoyable learning experience for all.