MediaWiki:Extending for Teaching and Learning

Introduction
This page will contain a comparison of Mediawiki systems and the extensions and addins they contain.
 * (js) MediaWiki:Common.js addins - are not editible by users and are created by the system admin. The MediaWiki:Common.js page is loaded in on each page of the media wiki.
 * (tm) Template: Creatable by users and can automate common layouts.
 * (ex) Extension: Additional features are added to Mediawiki by uploading code (in php) to your Mediawiki site. (Extension Extension list).
 * (wi) Widget. Widgets extension allows adding widgets to wiki by just creating pages in Widget namespace. (MediaWiki:Extension:Widgets, 2009) . For the widgets to work, the widget extension (some additional php code) must be installed on your server first. As there is potential for unauthorised access to your data, permission to create a widget (in the widget namespace) is set in the LocalSettings file). The cool thing about a widget is that you can extend Media Wiki inside the wiki rather than creating additional PHP code to upload separately to the server (MediaWiki Widgets).
 * (ot) Other tools that have proved useful when using a wiki for teaching and learning.

A common question is "can an extension be included to add Flash files?" Unfortunately, to allow users to add Flash file to the Server opens up security holes, so unless you restrict the upload to "trusted" users it is best to provide a widget link to an external site (like slideshare). See Extension:Flash_Extension for an example showing the warning.

This page is a companion to Examples from virtualMV, WikiEducator and WikiVersity.

Other sites/people using MediaWiki for Education
 * Jo Kay TAFE NSW
 * Commonwealth of Learning COL wiki

Installed extensions
MediaWiki maintains a page showing Extension information others
 * virtualMVwiki
 * WikiEducator
 * Wikiversity
 * Wikipedia
 * Wikibooks

Table of teaching and learning extensions
Notes:
 * ? means I haven't checked it out yet.
 * D means was disabled. Has been re-enabled due to a bandwidth increase.
 * H means Help instructions for this feature for this wiki are on this page
 * If a system has a feature installed, next to the Y may be numbered examples that connect you to a sample page
 * % after a number indicates the example is not really learning content (e.g. blip.tv on Otago Polytechnics contents page). If/when this happens (or if you find a learning example) I will replace.
 * Y$ in Footnote example is at the foot of this page
 * 1$ in Glossary float over "HTML" in example 1