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Ed Podesta

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Here's the presentation file for my talk at Heerlen.

http://www.podesta.org.uk/downloads/e-help/heerlen.swf

Please pm me if you need the original file.

I have also made a post at my blog about the expericence. Thanks all, once again, for inviting me, and for providing such a great weekend of CPD.

Ed.

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Here's the presentation file for my talk at Heerlen.

http://www.podesta.org.uk/downloads/e-help/heerlen.swf

Please pm me if you need the original file.

I have also made a post at my blog about the expericence. Thanks all, once again, for inviting me, and for providing such a great weekend of CPD.

Ed.

Thanks Ed

How reliable in your experience is the hosted wiki option from pbwiki.com?

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Thanks Ed

How reliable in your experience is the hosted wiki option from pbwiki.com?

Very reliable - but my wiki not had a very heavy load (or any load at all really!). You do get a lot more choice in terms of tweaking the wiki too. I use wikimedia, but there's others out there. Doug Belshaw recently posted about a new wiki software that someone's developed.

The downside is that setting up a wiki is not for those who can't invest 2-10 hours setting it up. If you're familiar with Php and SQL then I would recommend it wholeheartedly, if you're not and you're weary of picking up a smattering (no more than editing a text document) of such things then I would say go for the hosted version.

ed.

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Very reliable - but my wiki not had a very heavy load (or any load at all really!). You do get a lot more choice in terms of tweaking the wiki too. I use wikimedia, but there's others out there. Doug Belshaw recently posted about a new wiki software that someone's developed.

Rather surpringly many hosting options also appear to be free so long as you carry their ads, (and very cheap to upgrade to an ads free version).

As my main web space providers don't support php I will probably go for a hosted solution for now.

The next question is of course what to use it for?

I like the ideas of a wiki contributed to by teachers interested in creating a revision resource for a specific GCSE or A Level. Do you think that sort of thing would have legs??

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Very reliable - but my wiki not had a very heavy load (or any load at all really!). You do get a lot more choice in terms of tweaking the wiki too. I use wikimedia, but there's others out there. Doug Belshaw recently posted about a new wiki software that someone's developed.

Rather surpringly many hosting options also appear to be free so long as you carry their ads, (and very cheap to upgrade to an ads free version).

As my main web space providers don't support php I will probably go for a hosted solution for now.

The next question is of course what to use it for?

I like the ideas of a wiki contributed to by teachers interested in creating a revision resource for a specific GCSE or A Level. Do you think that sort of thing would have legs??

Yup. It would be a great resource. I'm not sure that it would squeeze all the benefits that I forsee for wikis (i.e. students themselves adding content and arguing about it), but for giving students a place to go for content then it would work. I did read something on schoolhistory.co.uk that suggested that someone had set up a textbook wiki - someone connected with Ian Grove Stephenson at his business.

I've got an idea for one about teaching history - different techniques, approaches to different content, schemes, enquiry questions. etc. What do you think of that?

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I've got an idea for one about teaching history - different techniques, approaches to different content, schemes, enquiry questions. etc. What do you think of that?

A super idea - set it up and I will contribute. :ice

Interestingly my RE colleague spoke to me about getting students to contribute to their own online resource - I will suggest a wiki

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Maybe members will find this article on blogs interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1730326,00.html

Arianna Huffington

Tuesday March 14, 2006

The Guardian

I am frequently asked if the rise of the blogosphere is the death knell for Big Media. My answer is that Big Media isn't dead; it's critically ill but will actually be saved by the transfusion of passion and immediacy of the blogging revolution. Blogging and the new media are transforming the way news and information are disseminated, as evidenced by the number of traditional media outlets, like this one, dipping their collective toe into the blog pond.

Blogs are by nature very personal - an intimate, often ferocious expression of the blogger's passions. You're much more intimate when you're writing a blog than when you're writing a column, let alone a book: the conversational nature of it; the way that it draws people in and includes them in the dialogue. You may set out to write about politics but, in the end, you write about yourself; about the things you care about beyond politics. And this creates a close bond between blogger and audience.

It really does become conversation. I've always enjoyed bringing people together from different parts of my life and facilitating interesting conversations. In the past, these have taken place around dinner tables. Now, via cyberspace, those conversations have gone global. And they are happening in real time.

Just a year ago, I'd have an idea on a Monday, write a column about it on Tuesday, it would be published on Wednesday ... and readers would respond with letters to the editor two or three days later. Now, I can get an idea Monday morning, blog about it and immediately get comments. And these comments then take on a life of their own, as our community of commenters begins responding to each other.

For me, one of the defining moments for the new media came last July, with the London bombings. Many of the Huffington Post's London-based bloggers - like Simon Jenkins, Guardian columnist and former editor of the Times - started weighing in with realtime reactions. I was having my morning coffee and reading my paper copy of the New York Times, which had a front-page photo of Londoners celebrating winning the Olympic bid. And I thought, what a different picture we'd be seeing at that moment. It gave me the sense of how anachronistic daily papers have become - and how, when reading them, you really get the sense you're reading yesterday's news.

Blogging has empowered the little guy - levelling the playing field between the media haves and the media have-only-a-laptop-and-an-internet connection. It's made the blogosphere an invaluable tool for holding the mainstream media's feet to the fire. As blogger extraordinaire Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit) puts it in his new book, An Army of Davids: "Where before journalists and pundits could offer illogical analysis or cite 'facts' that were in fact false, now the Sunday morning op-eds have already been dissected on Saturday night, within hours of their appearing on newspapers' websites."

Bloggers have done the same with politicians. Witness Trent Lott and the way bloggers turned him from Senate majority leader into political chum by pursuing a story the mainstream media passed on. That's another great thing about bloggers: when they decide that something matters, they refuse to let go. They're the true pit bulls of reporting.

That kind of relentlessness was never available to me as a newspaper columnist. When I started blogging about Judy Miller and the New York Times in 2005, it was something I never could have done as a columnist. My editors would have said: "Oh, you wrote about her last month." Same with Bob Woodward's involvement in Plamegate. I first wrote about it on November 16 2005, then did a follow-up on November 28. Then Nora Ephron wrote a blog on him that gained tremendous traction, including being mentioned in Frank Rich's New York Times column. By getting on these stories early and staying on them - and by linking to other bloggers covering the story, and having them link back to us - we helped shape and define them.

Bloggers share their work, argue with each other and add to a story dialectically. It's why the blogosphere is now the most vital news source in America.

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I have also made a post at my blog about the experience. Thanks all, once again, for inviting me, and for providing such a great weekend of CPD

And thankyou for the dissemination!

Interesting choice of logo on your blog. It is one of those suggested by Doug? 12b_png.gif

Yup, I like this one, it's understated. If you choose a professionally designed one, then let me know and I'll switch it around. BTW where's the best place to link to as a central link for e-help?

Ed.

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Ed

A couple of questions:

1) I have registered with del.ic.ious but how do I actually import my bookmarks into it - have been going round in circles trying to use their website and am getting nowhere.

2) I have downloaded the mediawiki software and set up a folder on my comptonhistory site for it. Ihave uploaded the files, but am not sure what to do next. I have been looking on the mediawiki website and think that I have configured the config and index.php to allow access but when I type in the url they suggest (www.comptonhistory/mediawiki/config/index.php) I get a 404 error. Any suggestions?

Cheers

Dan

PS you may have opened up a pandora's box here!!!!

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Ed

A couple of questions:

1) I have registered with del.ic.ious but how do I actually import my bookmarks into it - have been going round in circles trying to use their website and am getting nowhere.

2) I have downloaded the mediawiki software and set up a folder on my comptonhistory site for it. Ihave uploaded the files, but am not sure what to do next. I have been looking on the mediawiki website and think that I have configured the config and index.php to allow access but when I type in the url they suggest (www.comptonhistory/mediawiki/config/index.php) I get a 404 error. Any suggestions?

Cheers

Dan

PS you may have opened up a pandora's box here!!!!

Delicious wouldn't upload, last time I looked they were "fixing it", i'll check it out tomorrow!

hmm.

check your URL, or that there hasn't been an error during the ftp upload. it sounds like there's nothing where you said it should be.

Ed.

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Thecomptonwiki facility is up and running! I shall be launching this with my year 8s after the Easter hols and keep you all updated on our progress.

Well Done :clapping

For the benefit of the slower learners in the group could you now describe the process of setting it up step by step?

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Thecomptonwiki facility is up and running! I shall be launching this with my year 8s after the Easter hols and keep you all updated on our progress.

Well Done :clapping

For the benefit of the slower learners in the group could you now describe the process of setting it up step by step?

Yes, please...

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