Web 2.0/ 8 May 2008

Jim Kleinhenz

Warm up 2.0

What is Web 2.0…and is it really that important?Michael Welch’s video

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Social Bookmarking and beyond: Del.icio.us and Diigo

Wiki Work

What distinguishes a wiki from a traditional web site is that it has two parts: the public part and an editing environment. It is the editing environment that allows you to add material to the wiki. At base, it’s a simple process: you log on to the editing environment, you add the material, and you log off by clicking the ‘Save’ button. We are going to concentrate on three things: adding text, adding hypertext, and creating a new page. They are related activities.

1.Text

  • Log in to the editing environment.
  • Type (or copy and paste) the text into the editing environment.
  • Log off by clicking on the ‘Save’ button

2. Hypertext is text with html code attached to it. This code provides a link or path to another part of the Internet. To add hypertext to the wiki you need to use the ‘Link ‘dialog box in the editing environment.

  • In the editing environment, type the word you want to turn into hypertext.
  • Select that word.
  • Click on ‘Link’ on the toolbar.
  • This opens a dialog box that will allow us to attach the code.
  • In the dialog box, change Link Type to URL
  • Copy and paste the website address into the box labeled URL.
  • The ‘Link text’ box should have the word you typed in the wiki.
  • Click okay.
  • Click ‘Save’ to close the editing environment.

3. Creating a New Page

(Thinking about)Creating a New Page:

On a website, the page is more important than you might think. The page is the unit around which websites are organized. The more information you have the more organization—and pages—you need. Three things to be aware of:

  • The ‘Home’ page is the page you arrive at when you first go to the wiki. It has two functions: to introduce the wiki, and to provide links to the rest of the wiki.
  • The individual pages are organized in a Parent/ child relationship, which looks like this. The arrows represent hyperlinks that connect the parents to the children.The parent page must have a link on it to the child page.
  • Navigation: to get from one part of the wiki to another you need hyperlinks that tie the pages together. Child pages should have links that go back to the parent page—and back to the home page of the wiki.

(Starting to)Create aNew Page

When you create a new page, you create a hyperlink to that new page. This is confusing, because you are linking to a page that doesn’t exist yet.

  • In the editing environment of the parent page, type in the name of the child page.
  • Select it.
  • Click on Link in the toolbar and open this dialog box.
  • You should not have to make any changes.
  • Click okay to return to the editing environment.
  • Click Save to return to the public part of the wiki.

Creating a New Page (Really)

We now have a link on the parent page to a child page. But the child page does not exist.

  • Click on this hyperlink.
  • This will take you to a page that will tell you that the page you have clicked on does not exist—but you can create that page.
  • Click create a new page—and go to the new page.

It is a good idea to place a hyperlink on the new page that links back to the parent page and the home page of the wiki. To do this, you use the link dialog box. In the box that says ‘Link to wiki page’ change to the name of the page you want to link to.