Creating the Walled Garden: Setting Up Your Own Blogs, Wikis, and More

Read the PHP only, no database version of this list.

Quotes to Ponder

Source: Wesley Fryer, Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Source: Josh Petersen, 43Things.com

The following list is useful if you want to create a “walled garden” of safe Web 2.0 tools you can use within your school’s intranet, or even Internet, but have complete control over. So, a quick review of the tools available for those who want to “lock” things down and eliminate social networking OUTSIDE of school environment during the school day:

Setting Up PHP/MySQL

Once you setup PHP/MySQL on your server, you’ll be set and ready to go with the following applications. However, getting to that point might require some technical expertise. You can see some examples (screenshots) of walled garden applications.

Quick Setup Process

1. Install WAMP/MAMP/XAMPP as appropriate on a computer that will work as a server.
2. After installing the software, download your walled garden application of choice (e.g. Wordpress, Moodle) and put it in the appropriate folder (usually “htdocs” in an Apache server setting).
3. Use a program like SQLYog (Windows), CocoaMYSQL (Mac) to create the database. The walled garden app will create all the necessary tables to house your data.

Note that you can follow this visual installation guide for WAMP? and SQLYog? to see what this might look like.

Software Tools

• Windows Software
  • WAMP Server: Easy setup of Apache server, PHP and MySQL on Windows.
  • SQLYOG : Allows you to interact with the database using Structured Query Language (SQL), as well as make backups of your SQL tables.You’ll want to download the community edition of SQLYog.
• Macintosh Software
  • MAMP Server: Easy setup of Apache server, PHP and MySQL on on Macintosh OS X
  • CocoaMySQL: Allows you to interact with the database using Structured Query Language (SQL) statements.

Once you are setup with MySQL/PHP on your server, you’re ready to install any or all of the walled garden applications on that computer.

Blogging Tools

Service Substitution: Blogmeister, Blogspot, Wordpress.com, Learnerblogs

• b2Evolution: Enables you to control/moderate comments once certain hacks (ZIP file of hacks we use in my district) are applied, set up a “master” blog with multiple sub-blogs (each with its own RSS feed) inside, easy user management and assignment of permissions, and more. This is the solution we use for managing publication of online student writing and blogging (when it arises).
  View Example
• WordPress.org: Everyone knows about this tool, but it’s powerful. If you’re not sure how to install it, you can always follow this brief tutorial. I have hope that Multi-user WordPress will eventually work well.

Regular Wordpress example

• Elgg: Blogs, e-portfolio and social networking; granular permissions.

Podcasting Tools

Service Substitution: Podomatic, Odeo

• LoudBlog - Read the installation guide here.

Wikis

Service Substitution: Wikispaces, PBWiki

• MediaWiki: Although I’ve looked at different wikis you can install on your own server, I keep coming back to MediaWiki for ease of use.
• TikiWiki: Powerful wiki with user admin rights, but lacks the “open-ness” (as far as I can tell) that MediaWiki enjoys. Nevertheless, it can be powerful.
• WikkaWiki: “a flexible, standards-compliant and lightweight wiki engine written in PHP, which uses MySQL to store pages. Forked from WakkaWiki. Designed for speed, extensibility, and security.”
• See also WikiMatrix to compare various wiki engines.

Content Management Systems

Service Substitution:: web page editors like Dreamweaver/Frontpage Allow easy management, creation, and editing of web pages and sites by non-techie users.

• Joomla or Mambo
• Plone
• Drupal CivicSpace or Drupal Ed

Image Gallery with Tagging and RSS Publishing Enabled

Service Substitution:: Flickr

• The Gallery
• MediaChest (allows one to share multimedia elements, images/sound/etc)

Online Discussion Board

Service Substitution: Blackboard/WebCT

• Moodle - Note that you can follow the steps in this tutorial to install Moodle.
• phpBB - Electronic bulletin board.
• Vanilla - Great looking standards compliant forum. Missing administration features such as deleting a user.

Frequently Asked Questions

Service Substitution:: ???

• phpMyFAQ

Online Survey Tool

Service Substitution: SurveyMonkey

• UCCASS
• phpSurvey
• PHPSurveyor

Online Radio

• Icecast
• CampCaster

Calendar Management with RSS support

• WebCalendar
• Although PhotoCalendar isn’t a Web 2.0 tool, I thought I’d link to it…lets you create those “kinko’s like” calendars with photosusing your web browser. Easy and output looked great.

Social Bookmarking Tools

Service Substitution:: Del.icio.us, Simpy, Blinklist

• de.lirio.us this site was down at the time I tried to access it.
• Scuttle
• sa.bros.us
• stu.dicio.us

>

Social Networking

Service Substitution: Myspace, Xanga

• Elgg

Maintaining Email Lists

Service Substitution: YahooGroups, Gmail Groups

• phplist
• mailman
• Not sure about these…Bernie Dodge suggested them, but I’m open to suggestions.

Bulk Emailing Software

Service Substitution: None really, I just wanted this category for bulk emailing!

• Fairlogic’s WorldCast
• AnnounceList - distributes messages to a list of email. Not a replacement for an online group or mailing list, it might still be useful for one-way mailings/bulk emailing.
• MailBatch
• GoonMail
• EmailSender

MySQL Backup Tools

• MySQL Backup
• The phpMyAdmin Project

Office tools

• S5Web-based presentations
• Simple Spreadhseet - web-based spreadsheet
• OpenXchange - groupware solution

By the way, if you’re not interested in using these tools and are curious what is out there on the Web, check out All Things Web 2.0.