Quick Start Guide

Quick Start!

Uniformity is important here, so we need to strive to keep a standard "look" to articles and categories -- keep that in mind! Here's what you need to get going on your own entries

NOTE: Capitalization rules to be clarified Click the Discussion tab above for "Talk" on this page

Objective

Lesson Planning Wiki organizes content information for streamlined lesson planning

Getting Started

Teacher Created Content

• teachers may add their own content information and lesson plans by using the Quick Start lessons below
• or, send us your ideas, your wish lists, and your content outlines and we will upload it for you
• we can store pictures, videos, and links
• we can list articles and lesson plans and teaching ideas
• send it to us, or... here you go for yourself:

First Step: Login

You must be logged in

• user registration
  • use the register forms by the login section in the upper right - your account will be created immediately
  • in the future, your School4Schools.com account will work for the wiki pages, as well

Title Search

• search for your subject
  • example: "Shakespeare."
    • if it appears, either as an article, or within an existing page, you may edit it
    • if it does not exist, make a new article (see below)
  • you decide and the rest of us will edit, add and build it with you!

Starting New Article

• if your search returns no articles:
  • you will find an option to start a new article with that title
    • NOTE: if you searched "ancient egypt" the article title will show as "Ancient egypt" -- when making new titles with multiple words that are Proper Nouns, Capitalize the First Letters of all the words for uniformity
    • otherwise, only the first word will have Capitalized first letter
    • NOTE: be very careful about article and category titles
  • article and category titles should be simple, easy to find, and logical
• once you have chosen your title:
  • click on "Create the page "xx" on this wiki!"
• be sure to save your page, as per the below instructions
• here for Wikipedia guidelines for Article titles

Categories

• categories provide organization and easy navigation
• follow the categories on the Main Menu to the left and build them from the general content Subjects
• create category links to your article, starting with the general subject and linking forward:
  • • English & Literature (main subject category)
      • British literature
        • Shakespeare
• place the category at the end of your article with the code [[category:category]]
  • your article will automatically appear on that category list
• edit Category pages by clicking on the "Edit" button at top (you must be logged in!)
  • Category and Article links have double brackets on each side "[[ ]]"
  • save your Category page, then click on that new article or category.
    • since it doesn't exist, it will ask you if you want to create a new page
    • you will now see the message "You have followed a link to a page that does not exist yet."
    • go into the edit box area and create your article!!
• IMPORTANT: the title of your article will be EXACTLY as you have typed in for your search!!
  • article titles should have first letters Capitalized if it is a Proper Noun;
  • otherwise, the first word will have 1st letter Capitalized, and the other words not, per wikipedia standards
• see Category names

Using Microsoft Word to Create Articles

• Microsoft Office Word Add-in For MediaWiki
  • convert Word documents to MediaWiki format
  • go here to download and install the Microsoft Word Add-in for MediaWiki

Article formatting

common page format for this wiki

• to format your article the same as other articles here, use the template we have created as per:
  • open a new window to view the School4Schools Lesson Plan Wiki
  • go to the "Main Page"
  • open the Article Format & Structure page in a new window (right click, "open new in new window")
  • select "Edit" (link above)
  • scroll down to the Edit box, which appears below the article when the Editing function is open.
  • select all (alt-A) and copy (cntrl-C) the code from the Article Format & Structure page
  • paste the code into the Edit box of the article you want to create (in your other browser window)

Basic outline structure

• codes you need to know:
  • 2 "equal signs" == on either side of text will create an outline header that will appear in the table of contents (called a "Level 2 Headline")
  • 3 "equal signs" === on either side of text will create a sub-category that will appear in the table of contents (called a "Level 3 Headline")
  • one star "*" will create a bullet
    • two stars "**" will create a sub-category bullet
  • other indentations can be found here: Wiki/Help:Formating

Some other useful codes

• common codes are found at the top-left of the Edit box, including Bold, Italic, Internal Link, External Link, Level 2 Headline, and others.

=== italic, bold, underline  ===

• italic is two hash marks on either side of a word ' ' word ' '
• bold is three hash marks on either side of a word ' ' ' word ' ' '
• underline is created with the hmtl tags on underline: <u>text</u>
  • for general formatting instructions, see this mediawiki article Mediawiki/Help:Formatting

display code: nowiki

• <nowiki> and </nowiki> turn on and off Mediawiki code in order to display the code as plain text

collapsible text

• simple expand-collapse

This text is collapsable.

• • code: ** expand/collapse codes:

<div class="mw-collapsible"> This text is collapsible. </div>

• • note that the "collapse" and "expand" menu is to the far right
    • to move it to the middle, add style="width:50%">
  • default hide collapsed text:

<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:50%"> </div>

• • Sources:
    • [[https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Collapsible_elements#Collapsible_tables Collapsible Tables (MediaWiki)}}
    • [Help: Collapsing]

Save your page!

• preview your page by clicking on the "Show Preview" button below
  • the Preview will show as it will appear above the Edit box -- it has not been saved yet, so don't go away yet!
    • the Preview is useful for avoiding too many edit history entries -- a strong feature of the wiki is that edits are tracked, and if every little change is tracked it gets very full of edit histories -- avoid it by using the "Preview" function and/or the ""This is a minor edit" button at the bottom
• add a "Summary" of what you have done with each edit:
  • such as "started new article"
  • or "added new section ...."
  • to ignore the "Summary" entry, you will have to click on the "Save Page" button twice
• once you have saved your page make sure users can navigate properly to it through the categories. To do this, click on the subject categories to the left, and if your categories don't show, just edit the category page by adding the internal link code [[ ]] and saving on it, then creating the sub-category or direct link to your new article page.

Links

• Wikis function by linking articles to categories and internal and external sources.
  • your article should have lots of links to useful things, references, and ideas
  • even though a link doesn't exist, create it! This is how wikis are built!! (It's also why you need to be careful about titles, so that entries are not doubled up)
• internal links work with double brackets as in [[ ]] with the title of the article page inbetween as in [[link]]
  • your linke will show as active in your page even though there is no article at that link -- you or someone else will eventually create the article at that link.
• external links work with single brackets as in [ ] with the web address of your link inbetween as in [[www.school4schools.com/wiki]]
  • External links should be accurate and working!

Images

• see Images article for instructions on use of images here

Help!

• when all else fails, contact the School4Schools admin here and we will work it out together.