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I am more concerned about my members figuring it out since most like to just press buttons. Not sure how to simplify it to them in an explaination.
And so you should - for many people writing in a wiki context is a new skill. We have managed to learn email, word processing, and some of us even simple wysiwyg web pages. In recent times the development of IT has made us transfer those skills to blogs, and online photo and file sharing. However, the learning of using wiki requires news skills.
In a raw wiki the wysiwig is gone from where you type, but some wikis do have a toolbar of buttons that helps. On xoopsdocs when our work area was alive and kicking at first I was stumped - but links to the sandbox and a file defining the codes and what they do helped. Then a toolbar appeared and that made things easier for the normal things - formatting, inserting pictures etc. However, I know my whole thinking pattern had to change - I had to learn '[' 'code' ']' and not be frightened of it. I also had to learn the lingo that goes with understanding code (known as metalanguage) For those that grew up on a diet of microsoft office like myself it can be daunting, especially if they have never ventured into using code of any kind - on boards like this or on websites.
You can also see a change in the expected IT skills of school students in the change in curriculum - for example here in Australia. Being built into the standard skills and learning expected from students are the IT skills that would allow them to use blogs, albums, wikis and webpages with ease. This is new. Up until now the curriculum included word processing, spreadhseets and exlectronic texts - now they are include more dynamic skills such as those needed for developing interactive web pages - blogs, boards - and wikis.
Our new English curriculum refers to 'multimodal' texts - these are essentially electronic texts that include any variation of movie, sound, printed text and image - ie - dynamic websites.
So...while we wait for the teenages to grow up and enter the online adult communities we have some adults to educate as well. As always - if your web users have kids their kids will show them how! But if not you will need to link to the sandbox, a tutorial, a code list, and have a go at putting in a button bar - they do exist - Wizanda may be your best helper there. And...remind these new wiki users to be patient with themselves...for some it will be a big learning curve. Others will do it easily - it will vary greatly depending on their IT skills and their thinking proesses.
