How do you make use of WISE now?

• I use authoring when I need to go in and look at someone else's work - so I go into the authoring mode to check on their work (e.g., if they want to re-use a WISE-draw canvas in another step, but didn't give it the right file name).

• I don't use the authoring system for html development. Use dream weaver or some other authoring tool, then paste in.

• I use WISE to test technology that I develop. This could involve making a single activity project - not a whole curriculum, and testing how it works in WISE

• I use it as a partnership tool - to help develop curriculum in a distriubted way. They go in and see the changes that I made the night before. I preview frequently, with both windows open. I select people to share authoring privilege with.

• I use authoring as a demo tool a lot, to show off the concept of a web-based learning environment and how functional it is that you can open a project in authoring mode and make changes to it. Very powerful demonstration, changes are live for students to start working with.

• I use in the classroom all the time. I've always got Project Manager open to fix typos and aesthetic bugs as they show up in front of the students. Also adapt to students' difficulty. Students like to point out errors.

• I use it in my teaching. Students make their own projects and it's a way for me to get them to authoring good curriculum but also to experience web-based applications. The authoring env as a design space for pre-service and in-service curriculum... is good.

• I use it for looking at all the projects and screening through them. I can search on "Tectonics" and find all projects with that in title. (I have special admin privileges)

• I upload resources for use in the project. All the time.

• I use the project authoring as a gateway to the Palm connection authoring.

• I use it to create a wrapper for somebody else's good web stuff. If some guy shows me his Tectonics activity online, a really good visualization of some geoscience concept, I embed it in a pedagogical context (eg. scaffolding notes, evidence).

• I show teachers how easy it is to go in and change the project in big or small ways without any assistance. At any given time, the ability to change is wide and deep.

• I use it as a way of almost helping myself make my research ideas real. It's a workspace that I can come to with an idea and turn it into something that works. It's not straightforward, but working in the editor I work out the concepts and the discussion topics then and there.

• I manage projects: backup, retire, share, delete

• I import content from existing projects. I grab steps that I like from other projects.

• I, as a researcher, use it to remind myself about the curriculum in important runs. (Archeologically) Finding which steps were effective and which weren't.

• sometimes, I make a plan, and stick to it, but not really that often. most of the time, I use the authoring system as a design environment - need it to be fluid

Project Editor: work space and collaborative design space, integrated
Project Manager: portal to content

What's easy?

• Easy to completely modify a project at any point.
• Edits are live.
• Authoring in any language, find content in target language
• Really easy to tie in anything that's on the web.
• Renaming steps, activities and projects
• Easy to get requisite software (web browser on every computer)
• Sharing with a particular user

What's hard?

• I don't use the html coding boxes. I use an external tool

• authoring complex steps like SenseMaker, too many things to know just to make it run

• knowing what I can do with the myriad step types

• keeping track of all the customized versions of a project, reconciling stuff like "05/12/02" with projectID=6150 or projecTitle="My Project"

What pitfalls do you see?

• all edits are live

• imported content doesn't know the parent

• the preview window is separate and requires switching back and forth

• our technology is restricted to what can run in a web browser, and when we push the limits a lot of users have trouble

• links to the greater web can go dead

What would you love to see?

• swappable interface skins

• author-defined templates for step content (eg. style, layout, size of window, location)

• filter/search projects on multiple attributes

• a display of set of projects that encodes data about their relations and attributes

• I'd love to import some swath at once.

• propagate revisions

• compare and contrast projects (eg. side-by-side step maps)

• track versions

• tracking of content origins (geneological tree would be nice)

• summaries, inventory of all content

• scrapbook for content that isn't in a particular project but is useful for importing

• drag and drop content sorting and importing

• more fluid access to content from structural/authoring view (eg. double-click on step to see inside)

• more easily import HTML content into project, link with specialized authoring tool

• mixing elements in tighter (eg. drawing in response to a note)

• author draws layout of interface, WYSIWYG

• more open-ended Branchpoint facility (more condition tests for contingencies in project flow)

• more flexibility in project flow besides looping and branchpoint selection ("Go into this activity and do all of these steps in any order you want and then follow the instructions in the next activity. When Amanda pops up she's going to give you a choice of where to go") Programmability of where students go and what happens to them.

• Curriculum types: design project, data collection and analysis project, palmtop projects (eg. creation wizards for each type)