Entries from November 2007 ↓

The TableSortingPlugin allows you to sort the rows of a table by the data in any column, simply by clicking on the header for that column.

For example, if you have a table listing the plugins installed in a TiddlyWiki, you can sort the table by author or plugin-size. Another example is a table that lists your movie collection — where you could sort the table by rating or genre — depending on what you are looking for.

Unlike existing solutions for sorting tables, the TableSortingPlugin is light-weight, easy to use, and future-proof. It also offers the ability to avoid sorting by specific columns, or to sort a table by default.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome as always.

Mobile Learning versus E-Learning - Is There a Difference?

A thought provoking article by a former teacher about the difference between E-learning and mobile learning. Puts the MORE project in a different light.

Mobile Learning - The Impact for Educators

The very opportunities provided by mobile learning create complexities and additional challenges for educators who are used to the traditional notion of instructing students.

As mentioned earlier, I am involved in various projects to develop TiddlyWiki for educational usage. Amongst them, is the MORE project which uses TiddlyWiki to allow students to receive and respond to educational and healthcare information. During the course of my work on the MORE project I’ve had a realisation: TiddlyWiki has great potential as a distance-learning tool.

We are working on an early TiddlyWiki prototype for the MORE project, which is a promising start in this direction. However it has also shown us that the possibilities with TiddlyWiki in distance-learning seem endless and there is a lot more we can do.

The possibilities

The possibilities for TiddlyWiki as a distance-learning tool include:

• Electronic course books - distribution of lectures and other course materials as TiddlyWikis, shared via email or CD.
• Electronic notebooks for note-taking and homework.
• Automatic downloading of new lessons to the student’s TiddlyWiki.
• Synchronization of homework and tests between students and teachers.
• Collaboration between students via TiddlyWikis that synchronize with each other.
• Authoring of new course materials and tests by teachers.
• Tools for teachers to store, view and analyse student results and performance notes.

Continue reading →

Intuitive navigation is key to a good user experience, and creating navigation menus in TiddlyWiki just got a whole lot easier!

The DropDownMenuPlugin allows you to turn a bulleted list into a drop-down menu, by placing <<dropMenu>> on the line after the list. It comes with two CSS themes, for horizontal and vertical menus. You can however style it to your heart’s content and come up with limitless variations.

The AccordionMenuPlugin also allows you to use lists as a basis for menus, by turning them into accordion style menus which are divided into different sections. Clicking on a section expands it and displays its contents, while collapsing the other sections. Once again, using it is as simple as placing <<accordion>> on the line after the list.

Continue reading →

Bookmarklets are small pieces of JavaScript code that you can use on any web page, by clicking on a bookmark. I’ve put together a selection of my most often used tweaks and tools for TiddlyWiki in the shape of bookmarklets, for the community to use. Presenting TiddlyWiki Bookmarklet Central.

Continue reading →