Using and Creating Open Educational Resources

mahetc.wikispaces.com/25

k12opened.wikispaces.com

k12opened.com

Objectives

The objectives of this workshop are:

· to learn wiki editing using Wikispaces

· to create a page in the K12 Open Ed Wikispace (http://k12opened.wikispaces.com/)

· to explore and gather open licensed clip art, photos, videos, etc. related to a topic and post it to a wiki page

· to edit the Open Kids Dictionary (http://dictionary.k12opened.com/)

· to edit a Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/)

Table of Contents

Working on the K12 Open Ed Wikispace 2

Working on the K12 Open Ed Wikispace

Here are some steps to do this.
1. Join Wikispaces at www.wikispaces.com (if you haven't already). Click the Join link in the upper-right corner of the page. (You'll need to do this to create new pages in this space.) After entering a user name, password, and email address, click No for Creating a New Space for now. (You can create your own wikispace later if you like.)
2. Join the K12 Open Ed space by going to http://k12opened.wikispaces.com and clicking the Join this Space link at the left under Actions. If you're in a workshop, wait a minute for us to approve you. (If you're not in a workshop, it may take a little longer.)
3. Choose a topic. A list of suggestions is on page 3, or you may choose your own.
4. Create a page for your topic. To do this, just click the New Page link to the left under Actions.

· Use your topic as the name for your new page. (If you choose a topic someone else has already created a page for, you may need to put your initials after your topic name to differentiate yours.)

· You will then be in the edit view of the page. Put a title (your topic) and your name at the top, and then click Save.

· Your new page will now appear in the Navigation links to the left of this page.

5. Find open-licensed photos, clip art, video, music, or other media related to your topic. A list of sources is on the wiki and on pages 15-20.

· Before beginning, make a folder on your desktop with your name to save your media in.

· Check the license of item (CC, GFDL, public domain, etc.).

· When you find something you like, right-click the image and select Save Image As or Save Picture As. Save the media into the folder you created for this.

· Note the source (credit/attribution), the license, and the location you got the media from. (You'll be putting this on your wiki page.) You can write these down, type them right into your wiki page, or right-click the file and include them in the image properties.

· Go find more media, or proceed to step 6.

6. Put the media you found on your wiki page and include a citation.

· Go to your page, and click Edit This Page.

· To insert text on a page, just type in the page area. You can use the style buttons (bold, italic, etc.) on the Editor toolbar.

· To insert an image on your page, see the instructions on page 5.

· Advanced - To insert a movie player or other widget, see the instructions on page 5.

· Make sure to put a citation under each media element that credits the source, tells the license, and gives a link to the original source. There is an example of how you might do this on the wiki.

· Remember you can always preview your changes before saving. And, if you make a mistake (or if someone else inadvertently messes up you page), you can always revert it by going to the History tab.

Suggested Topic List

In working on the K12 Open Ed wikispace (http://k12opened.wikispaces.com), you can choose one of these topics or come up with your own.

photosynthesis

the Renaissance

cotton gin

Aztecs

counting money

Milky Way

U.S. Constitution

Michelangelo

circulatory system

parts of a cell

Abraham Lincoln

water cycle

plate tectonics

acropolis

Wright Brothers

dinosaurs

history of the automobile

maps of Europe

rainforest

Olympics

The space shuttle

Thomas Edison

Beethoven

electrical circuits

hurricanes

moray eels

animal life in the tundra biome

carpenter bees

bats

the Great Depression

World War II

Mars Rovers

John F. Kennedy

Robert Frost

Nagasaki, Japan

Brazilian music

Theodore Roosevelt

Ellis Island

volcanoes

Civil War

the human body

Shakespeare

African geography

learning Spanish

math - geometry

sonnets

Sophocles Antigone

math - decimals

Early literacy/sight words

life cycles of plants

Arkansas history

math - fractions

Japanese American internment

ancient Egypt

biomes

solar system

elections

African-American history

Quick Start Guide to Editing With Wikispaces

A complete guide to using Wikispaces is available at www.wikispaces.com/help. Video tours are also available at www.wikispaces.com/site/tour.

Here are some of the common things you might want to do on an existing wikispace.

Creating a New Page

Click the New Page link under Actions on the left side of any page. Then give your page a name.

Editing a Page

Once you have navigated to the page you want to edit, click the Edit This Page link.

You will then be in an editing mode. Make any text changes you want by just typing in the page.

You can click Preview any time to see your changes before saving.

After you are done, click Save to save your changes. (If you make a mistake, you can always undo your changes. See “Viewing the History or Reverting a Change” below.)

Formatting Text

In the Visual Editor, you can use the Editor toolbar to make text bold, italic, colored, etc.

You can also use buttons on the toolbar to add numbers, bullets, or a horizontal rule. You can also add a hyperlink to another part of the wikispace or to an external web site.

Adding a Picture

(Before beginning, you will need to have the picture you want to include saved to your computer.)

· Go to the page, and click Edit This Page.

· On the Editor toolbar, click the image icon which looks like a tree in a box.

· Click Upload New File to select the image or file you wish to put on your page.

· Click Browse and locate the image. Click Open. Then click Upload to upload it to the wiki.

· After this, the image will appear in the thumbnails at the top of the Insert a File box.

· From here, put the cursor at the position on the page where you want to put the image. Then double-click the image in the Insert a File box to put it on the page. After that you can close the Insert a File box.

Adding an Embedded Movie, a Widget, or Other HTML

· Go to the page, and click Edit This Page.

· On the Editor toolbar, click the image icon which looks like a TV set.

Then choose the type of item you’d like to insert and paste in the embed code. Examples of things you can embed are YouTube or TeacherTube videos or Slideshare slide shows.

If you want to enter HTML code on your page, select Other HTML from the widget list, and type in your code.

Viewing the History or Reverting a Change

Once you have navigated to the page you want to edit, click the History tab.

This will show you a list of all the edits that have been done and who did each one.

To view an old version, just click the date and time for that version.

To revert to an old version, first click the date and time for that version. When you are on that page, click Revert to this version to revert any subsequent changes.

To compare two versions, click Select for the first one and then Compare for the second. The additions will be highlighted in green, and the deletions will be highlighted in red.

Quick Start Guide to Using the Kids Open Dictionary Builder

The Kids Open Dictionary Builder is located at http://dictionary.k12opened.com. You may want to sign up and log in to use it (this will also allow you to get updates as we add features), but you don’t have to.

The purpose of the dictionary is to create a completely open dictionary that can be used by anyone for any purpose. One feature that will be added in the future is a build-your-own-glossary tool for teachers.

This dictionary will be created through a process of mass collaboration with the help of lots of people like you. There are many ways you can participate. Here are a few.

Add a definition

There are three ways you can add a definition.

1. Click Instant karma to get a random word. (If you don’t like the word you got, just click it again until you get one you like.

2. Type in a word to the find box.

3. Click a letter and scan through the list to find a word you’d like to work on.

As you work on defining words, here are a few things to remember:

· Whatever work you do doesn’t have to be perfect or comprehensive. Others will build on and edit whatever you do.

· Please make sure anything you enter is your own work (not copied from another source) and that you are willing to share your work with others under a public domain license.

· This is a kids dictionary. Make sure the definitions are simple and accessible.

Edit someone else’s definition

Click Recent changes to see words that have recently been defined. Click a word to jump to it. Then click the Definition tab to make additions or changes.

Like other wikis, the History tab will let you view past changes and revert them if desired.

Suggest new words or features

If you find words that you think should be included in this dictionary but are missing, email us at . You can also email us any bugs you find or suggestions you have for new features.

Quick Start Guide to Editing Wikipedia

Note: As with all wikis, please make sure that any content you add is original or in the public domain and does not violate copyright.

1. Go to Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org. (You don't need to register or log in to edit Wikipedia; however, your IP address will be logged if you don't log in.)

2. Use the Search box on the left side of the screen to find a topic that you know something about. (Suggestions include your hometown, the university you attended, a favorite hobby, a well-known person, etc.)

3. Find something in the article that you can improve on. This may be fixing a typo, editing grammar, correcting a mistake, or adding information. To make the change:

o You can click the "Edit this page" tab at the top of the page to edit the entire page or the "[edit]" link for an individual section to edit that section. (The latter is often easier to manage.)

o For basic text changes, just edit the text as you like. When you are done, you can click the "Show preview" button to see your changes before you save them. When you are happy with your changes, click "Save page."

Don't worry about inadvertently messing up a page. One of the benefits of wikis is that it is easy to revert changes. See more below.

o For more advanced editing, use the toolbar at the top of the edit box:

You can mouse over each item to see what it does.

Advanced Tips

· To link to an internal page within Wikipedia, highlight the text you want to link and click from the toolbar. This will add double square brackets around the linked text. Paste the internal page name after the first two brackets and separate it from the text with a |. The resulting text should look like this:

[[Clayton, Ohio | Clayton]]

· To link to an external web site, highlight the text you want to link and click from the toolbar. This will add square brackets around the linked text. Paste the web site after the first bracket. The resulting text should look like this:

[http://www.englewood.oh.us/ City of Englewood]

· To add an image to a page, you first need to upload the image to the wiki. For Wikipedia, it is suggested that you upload images to Wikimedia Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org) and link to them there.

· You can view the history of edits to any page by clicking the “History” tab at the top. All the edits are listed chronologically with the most recent at the top. You can view the differences between various versions of the page by selecting the corresponding radio buttons and clicking “Compare selected versions.” A page can also be reverted to a previous version by choosing a prior version and editing and saving it.

· If you create an account and sign in to Wikipedia, you will be given a user page. You can also create your own “sandbox.” This is a “play area” where you can try different things without interfering with an established page.

· If you’re not sure how to achieve something, find a page that does what you are looking for and click “edit” to see their code. Then you can cancel without saving the changes.

· For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents.