Hi Pine,

Thanks for reviving this topic, it's an important one to people all around the world as Visual Editor is rolled out. VE is still being developed actively every day, and that means that any written instruction would very soon become outdated. That doesn't sound like the best time spent for anyone to me, even while I completely understand the need. We would be more than happy to work on something like that once VE is in a more ready state when we will know little more will change. Once we get to that point, we would love to have community involvement in it, so that we can make sure it answers the main questions people have who are using it. 

So, to be continued! If anyone has already elaborated something that can be shared, even if it is in a different language, I encourage you to share it! 

Thanks to all of you for moving us forward!

Best,
Floor


Floor Koudijs

Senior Manager, Wikipedia Education Program

Wikimedia Foundation

+1.415.839.6885  x6806 (landline)

+1.415.692.5289 (cell phone)

fkoudijs@wikimedia.org

education.wikimedia.org


On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 8:10 AM, Pine W <wiki.pine@gmail.com> wrote:

Following up on this: Cascadia Wikimedians may need some kind of presentation outline or screencast along these lines by mid-April. If the WMF education team and others can't create one by that time, we/I might hack together a rudimentary version and put it on Commons for others to reuse and/or build on.

Does anyone have recommendations for screencast creation software, preferably ones that are open source?

Thanks,
Pine

On Feb 23, 2015 2:19 PM, "Sage Ross" <ragesoss+wikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:
I think Charles' suggestion is right on: a couple of screencasts
demonstrating the use of VE would be a great thing to have.

While VE itself needs less and less explanation in terms of the
mechanics, there's still a lot that newcomers won't know in terms of
how they *ought* to use it. It would be great to demonstrate the
basics of what is expected of a Wikipedia article, using VE. This is
somewhat analogous to the approach we took with VE in the "Editing
Wikipedia" brochure: the center spread is about edting with
VisualEditor and wikitext, but the VisualEditor side of it is all
about the structure of a Wikipedia article. Showing a tightly edited
demonstration of someone starting a well-structured sandbox article
from scratch in VE, and explaining why they are using all the
formmatting tools they use along the way — from bolding the title to
section headers to wikilinks to citations to adding images to external
links in a 'see also' section — that would be ideal.

It's probably not something Wiki Education Foundation would tackle any
time soon, though.

Similarly, it would nice to have some guided tours that walk through
the basics of VE usage, similar to the wikitext ones in the current
training. I *might* find time to squeeze that in at some point in the
next few months.

We're tenatively planning to redo the WP:STUDENT training as part of
the Dashboard/Course Page system we're building, so that it would have
knowledge checks along the way and probably send users over to
Wikipedia to go through sandbox guided tours to practice the basics.
But that won't happen until (probably) late 2015.

-Sage

On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 1:38 PM, Jami Mathewson <jami@wikiedu.org> wrote:
> I don't know what our future training plans are, as I think the current
> training is pretty great for English Wikipedia. Definitely one of our best
> resources for students, so it's probably not a priority to improve that just
> yet. Sage may have better information about that, though.
>
> You'll have to be more specific about ideas that inspire students, and may I
> suggest we take this off-list so as not to overwhelm everybody's inbox?
> Jami
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 12:34 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks Jami (and sorry for misspelling your name. I am far too used to
>> writing to Jaime Anstee!)
>>
>> Will Wiki Ed be developing training for VE?
>>
>> LiAnna had some great ideas about how to inspire students. Are those
>> incorporated into the standard training anywhere?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Pine
>>
>> On Feb 23, 2015 12:26 PM, "Jami Mathewson" <jami@wikiedu.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> They're still using the student training[1], as we do not have a specific
>>> training for VE.
>>>
>>> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Training/For_students
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 12:09 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Jaime, thanks for the info. What training materials are these courses
>>>> using?
>>>>
>>>> Pine
>>>>
>>>> On Feb 23, 2015 9:50 AM, "Jami Mathewson" <jami@wikiedu.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> We have some classes that are editing primarily with the VE this term.
>>>>> Those classes still assigned the regular training for students, as the
>>>>> concepts about the community, policies, sourcing, and copyvios are important
>>>>> no matter which editor you use. We also thought the intro to wiki markup in
>>>>> the training would still be useful—for talk pages and other pages where you
>>>>> cannot enable the VE.
>>>>> Jami
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 7:43 AM, Charles Matthews
>>>>> <charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 23 February 2015 at 12:56, Vojtěch Dostál
>>>>>> <vojtech.dostal@wikimedia.cz> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I suppose WMUK's learning environment is not something other language
>>>>>>> editions can profit from, right?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I still strongly prefer the Wikipedia:Training toolkit.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> It depends what you want. The VLE is 81 lessons, now plus one new
>>>>>> "digital literacy" course, and so is more than a quick introduction. It has
>>>>>> quizzes, and I added some videos just before Wikimania.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A simple solution to teaching the VE would be perhaps two screen
>>>>>> capture videos, demonstrating how to use it for some simple operations.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Charles
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Education mailing list
>>>>>> Education@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Jami Mathewson
>>>>> Educational Partnerships Manager
>>>>> Wiki Education Foundation
>>>>> jami@wikiedu.org
>>>>> User:Jami (Wiki Ed)
>>>>> @WikiEducation
>>>>> wikiedu.org/partnerships/
>>>>>
>>>>> Our organization supports the Wikipedia Education Program in the United
>>>>> States and Canada.
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Education mailing list
>>>>> Education@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Education mailing list
>>>> Education@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jami Mathewson
>>> Educational Partnerships Manager
>>> Wiki Education Foundation
>>> jami@wikiedu.org
>>> User:Jami (Wiki Ed)
>>> @WikiEducation
>>> wikiedu.org/partnerships/
>>>
>>> Our organization supports the Wikipedia Education Program in the United
>>> States and Canada.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Education mailing list
>>> Education@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Education mailing list
>> Education@lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Jami Mathewson
> Educational Partnerships Manager
> Wiki Education Foundation
> jami@wikiedu.org
> User:Jami (Wiki Ed)
> @WikiEducation
> wikiedu.org/partnerships/
>
> Our organization supports the Wikipedia Education Program in the United
> States and Canada.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Education mailing list
> Education@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>

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