assigning students their college/university wikipedia page
aoir people, has anyone had any experience with assigning students the task of altering, improving, and tweaking their university page on wikipedia? in other words, has anyone assigned their college/university wikipedia page as a site of construction for a class? if so, i'm curious to hear any anecdotes, experiences, best-practices, relevant readings, and anything else you wish to share. david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com
I would also like to hear about people's experiences with assigning projects that involve creating/editing WP content. To that end, there is a WP page dedicated to its use in school projects: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects> -mz -- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm@uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org On Nov 10, 2008, at 2:44 PM, David M Silver wrote:
aoir people,
has anyone had any experience with assigning students the task of altering, improving, and tweaking their university page on wikipedia? in other words, has anyone assigned their college/university wikipedia page as a site of construction for a class? if so, i'm curious to hear any anecdotes, experiences, best-practices, relevant readings, and anything else you wish to share.
david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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David: On the Vanderbilt Univ site is an audio interview with history professor Michael Bess who used the WP Discussion Page of a Wikipedia article ("Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki") as some of the source material for a course on historical methods. See: http://blogs.vanderbilt.edu/cftpodcast/?paged=2 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/historydept/michaelbess/Hist%20200 Nick Jankowski At 22:19 10-11-2008, you wrote:
I would also like to hear about people's experiences with assigning projects that involve creating/editing WP content.
To that end, there is a WP page dedicated to its use in school projects: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects>
-mz
-- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm@uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org
On Nov 10, 2008, at 2:44 PM, David M Silver wrote:
aoir people,
has anyone had any experience with assigning students the task of altering, improving, and tweaking their university page on wikipedia? in other words, has anyone assigned their college/university wikipedia page as a site of construction for a class? if so, i'm curious to hear any anecdotes, experiences, best-practices, relevant readings, and anything else you wish to share.
david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
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Hello all, I have offered the assignment to students in my Political Geography course over the last 2 years. To date I have had only one person out of 130 students do it. He took on a controversial topic and found himself defending his work as it was being changed and edited a great deal. My theory as to why more students did not take it on is that they don't see themselves as producers of knowledge yet. I can not confirm this, nor have I asked why they do not. I just see looks of horror on their faces at the suggestion . Darren Purcell On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 3:39 PM, Jankowski <nickjan@xs4all.nl> wrote:
David:
On the Vanderbilt Univ site is an audio interview with history professor Michael Bess who used the WP Discussion Page of a Wikipedia article ("Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki") as some of the source material for a course on historical methods. See: http://blogs.vanderbilt.edu/cftpodcast/?paged=2 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/historydept/michaelbess/Hist%20200
Nick Jankowski
At 22:19 10-11-2008, you wrote:
I would also like to hear about people's experiences with assigning
projects that involve creating/editing WP content.
To that end, there is a WP page dedicated to its use in school projects: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects>
-mz
-- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm@uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org
On Nov 10, 2008, at 2:44 PM, David M Silver wrote:
aoir people,
has anyone had any experience with assigning students the task of altering, improving, and tweaking their university page on wikipedia? in other words, has anyone assigned their college/university wikipedia page as a site of construction for a class? if so, i'm curious to hear any anecdotes, experiences, best-practices, relevant readings, and anything else you wish to share.
david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
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_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- Darren Purcell SWAAG Treasurer Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Advisor Dept. of Geography University of Oklahoma Email: dpurcell@ou.edu (405) 325-9193 http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/P/Darren.E.Purcell-1/
Not only is there a Wikipedia page about the subject, there's also a group of Wikipedians who are ready and willing to help out with assignments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Classroom_coordination The main things to remember is that Wikipedia is not a controlled environment -- students will be interacting with other editors who neither know (nor care) that they are students, and that there are very definite rules for editing -- verifiability, no original research, and npov need to be followed. Encyclopedic writing is also very different from most academic writing, and can be difficult even for experienced authors to do well. If students approach working on a Wikipedia article like working on a typical school paper where you make an argument based on limited research, they will run into trouble. There's a short appendix on using and assigning Wikipedia in the book I recently published, "How Wikipedia Works." You can read it here -- http://howwikipediaworks.com/apb.html. best regards, Phoebe On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 1:19 PM, Michael Zimmer <zimmerm@uwm.edu> wrote:
I would also like to hear about people's experiences with assigning projects that involve creating/editing WP content.
To that end, there is a WP page dedicated to its use in school projects: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects>
-mz
-- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm@uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org
On Nov 10, 2008, at 2:44 PM, David M Silver wrote:
aoir people,
has anyone had any experience with assigning students the task of altering, improving, and tweaking their university page on wikipedia? in other words, has anyone assigned their college/university wikipedia page as a site of construction for a class? if so, i'm curious to hear any anecdotes, experiences, best-practices, relevant readings, and anything else you wish to share.
david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com *
Sorry all -- I just saw Barry's message with a plug for the book after I sent this. I'm not trying to spam you all! But I am very interested in the subject of teaching Wikipedia in the classroom -- I've seen this conversation/question come up many times in discussions both between educators and between Wikipedians. From the Wikipedia side, we are definitely interested in supporting good assignments and best practices for teaching Wikipedia, which help make everyone's life easier. If there are any suggestions for resources that Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation could develop that would be helpful for educators, please let me know and I can share with the community... -- Phoebe On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 11:08 AM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
Not only is there a Wikipedia page about the subject, there's also a group of Wikipedians who are ready and willing to help out with assignments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Classroom_coordination
The main things to remember is that Wikipedia is not a controlled environment -- students will be interacting with other editors who neither know (nor care) that they are students, and that there are very definite rules for editing -- verifiability, no original research, and npov need to be followed. Encyclopedic writing is also very different from most academic writing, and can be difficult even for experienced authors to do well. If students approach working on a Wikipedia article like working on a typical school paper where you make an argument based on limited research, they will run into trouble.
There's a short appendix on using and assigning Wikipedia in the book I recently published, "How Wikipedia Works." You can read it here -- http://howwikipediaworks.com/apb.html.
best regards, Phoebe
On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 1:19 PM, Michael Zimmer <zimmerm@uwm.edu> wrote:
I would also like to hear about people's experiences with assigning projects that involve creating/editing WP content.
To that end, there is a WP page dedicated to its use in school projects: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects>
-mz
-- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm@uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org
On Nov 10, 2008, at 2:44 PM, David M Silver wrote:
aoir people,
has anyone had any experience with assigning students the task of altering, improving, and tweaking their university page on wikipedia? in other words, has anyone assigned their college/university wikipedia page as a site of construction for a class? if so, i'm curious to hear any anecdotes, experiences, best-practices, relevant readings, and anything else you wish to share.
david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com *
-- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com *
One more note on the topic of teaching and assigning Wikipedia editing in the classroom -- there's an essay by J.B. Murray on the topic here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jbmurray/Advice which should be required reading for anyone considering it. He lays out the challenges and practical steps required for a successful Wikipedia assignment, based on a good deal of experience. best, Phoebe On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 11:08 AM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
Not only is there a Wikipedia page about the subject, there's also a group of Wikipedians who are ready and willing to help out with assignments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Classroom_coordination
The main things to remember is that Wikipedia is not a controlled environment -- students will be interacting with other editors who neither know (nor care) that they are students, and that there are very definite rules for editing -- verifiability, no original research, and npov need to be followed. Encyclopedic writing is also very different from most academic writing, and can be difficult even for experienced authors to do well. If students approach working on a Wikipedia article like working on a typical school paper where you make an argument based on limited research, they will run into trouble.
There's a short appendix on using and assigning Wikipedia in the book I recently published, "How Wikipedia Works." You can read it here -- http://howwikipediaworks.com/apb.html.
best regards, Phoebe
On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 1:19 PM, Michael Zimmer <zimmerm@uwm.edu> wrote:
I would also like to hear about people's experiences with assigning projects that involve creating/editing WP content.
To that end, there is a WP page dedicated to its use in school projects: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects>
-mz
-- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm@uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org
On Nov 10, 2008, at 2:44 PM, David M Silver wrote:
aoir people,
has anyone had any experience with assigning students the task of altering, improving, and tweaking their university page on wikipedia? in other words, has anyone assigned their college/university wikipedia page as a site of construction for a class? if so, i'm curious to hear any anecdotes, experiences, best-practices, relevant readings, and anything else you wish to share.
david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com *
This goes into the "anything else you wish to share" column. I teach an Internet literacy class, and we spend a week or so discussing wikipedia. I teach this class in a computer lab, so each student has their own computer. I directed them to view the entry on Web 2.0 in Wikipedia. I asked them to read it, then view the history page. Much to my surprise, a few of my students began to edit the Web 2.0 entry -- but not in a constructive way. They were vandals. So, I seized on the opportunity to further highlight and discuss the principles of editing and authoring in wikipedia and the problems that vandals, such as my students, have on the site. It served as a surprisingly useful illustration of the joys and problems with wikipedia, and at my direction the vandals deleted their handywork, and the page was restored. I guess this is a lessons learned story. I did not anticipate that my students in class would vandalze an entry. Perhaps the relative anonymity of the vandalism enabled them to feel more free to act that way (I did not know which student(s) engaged in the vandalism), or perhaps I just happen to have some hooligans in class (very likely). But, that hooligan-ness is likely shared beyond my UAlbany students. So, when teaching undergraduates about Wikipedia, and perhaps assigning them the construction/watching of an entry, you might want to think about how to handle cases in which your students become vandals, and how to turn such acts into opportunities. Regards, ~Jenny Assistant Professor Department of Communication, SS 340 University at Albany, SUNY Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4873 jstromer@albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~jstromer
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of David M Silver Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 3:44 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] assigning students their college/university wikipedia page
aoir people,
has anyone had any experience with assigning students the task of altering, improving, and tweaking their university page on wikipedia? in other words, has anyone assigned their college/university wikipedia page as a site of construction for a class? if so, i'm curious to hear any anecdotes, experiences, best-practices, relevant readings, and anything else you wish to share.
david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
I had the exact same experience -- I taught an undergraduate class about Wikipedia, and showed them how to edit articles, and they immediately started vandalizing the one we were looking at. mark
This goes into the "anything else you wish to share" column.
I teach an Internet literacy class, and we spend a week or so discussing wikipedia. I teach this class in a computer lab, so each student has their own computer. I directed them to view the entry on Web 2.0 in Wikipedia. I asked them to read it, then view the history page. Much to my surprise, a few of my students began to edit the Web 2.0 entry -- but not in a constructive way. They were vandals. So, I seized on the opportunity to further highlight and discuss the principles of editing and authoring in wikipedia and the problems that vandals, such as my students, have on the site. It served as a surprisingly useful illustration of the joys and problems with wikipedia, and at my direction the vandals deleted their handywork, and the page was restored.
I guess this is a lessons learned story. I did not anticipate that my students in class would vandalze an entry. Perhaps the relative anonymity of the vandalism enabled them to feel more free to act that way (I did not know which student(s) engaged in the vandalism), or perhaps I just happen to have some hooligans in class (very likely). But, that hooligan-ness is likely shared beyond my UAlbany students.
So, when teaching undergraduates about Wikipedia, and perhaps assigning them the construction/watching of an entry, you might want to think about how to handle cases in which your students become vandals, and how to turn such acts into opportunities.
Regards, ~Jenny
Assistant Professor Department of Communication, SS 340 University at Albany, SUNY Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4873 jstromer@albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~jstromer
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of David M Silver Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 3:44 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] assigning students their college/university wikipedia page
aoir people,
has anyone had any experience with assigning students the task of altering, improving, and tweaking their university page on wikipedia? in other words, has anyone assigned their college/university wikipedia page as a site of construction for a class? if so, i'm curious to hear any anecdotes, experiences, best-practices, relevant readings, and anything else you wish to share.
david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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A friend of mine told me about a her experience with Wikipedia and plagiarism. The student's paper, which was turned in /very/ late after many extensions, seemed a little funny to her. She looked into it, and found passages lifted straight from Wikipedia. His defense: he claimed he actually wrote the Wikipedia entry in question and therefore was only quoting himself. I then explained to her how Wikipedia worked and made sure to show her the history tab. Cris Cristina Lopez, Ph.D. Office of Information Technology, Digital Media Center University of Minnesota 212 Walter Library 117 Pleasant St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 612-626-6639 Please visit our Web site: http://dmc.umn.edu Mark Warschauer wrote:
I had the exact same experience -- I taught an undergraduate class about Wikipedia, and showed them how to edit articles, and they immediately started vandalizing the one we were looking at. mark
This goes into the "anything else you wish to share" column.
I teach an Internet literacy class, and we spend a week or so discussing wikipedia. I teach this class in a computer lab, so each student has their own computer. I directed them to view the entry on Web 2.0 in Wikipedia. I asked them to read it, then view the history page. Much to my surprise, a few of my students began to edit the Web 2.0 entry -- but not in a constructive way. They were vandals. So, I seized on the opportunity to further highlight and discuss the principles of editing and authoring in wikipedia and the problems that vandals, such as my students, have on the site. It served as a surprisingly useful illustration of the joys and problems with wikipedia, and at my direction the vandals deleted their handywork, and the page was restored.
I guess this is a lessons learned story. I did not anticipate that my students in class would vandalze an entry. Perhaps the relative anonymity of the vandalism enabled them to feel more free to act that way (I did not know which student(s) engaged in the vandalism), or perhaps I just happen to have some hooligans in class (very likely). But, that hooligan-ness is likely shared beyond my UAlbany students.
So, when teaching undergraduates about Wikipedia, and perhaps assigning them the construction/watching of an entry, you might want to think about how to handle cases in which your students become vandals, and how to turn such acts into opportunities.
Regards, ~Jenny
Assistant Professor Department of Communication, SS 340 University at Albany, SUNY Albany, NY 12222 518-442-4873 jstromer@albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~jstromer
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of David M Silver Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 3:44 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] assigning students their college/university wikipedia page
aoir people,
has anyone had any experience with assigning students the task of altering, improving, and tweaking their university page on wikipedia? in other words, has anyone assigned their college/university wikipedia page as a site of construction for a class? if so, i'm curious to hear any anecdotes, experiences, best-practices, relevant readings, and anything else you wish to share.
david silver http://silverinsf.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
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participants (8)
-
Cristina Lopez -
Darren Purcell -
David M Silver -
Jankowski -
Jennifer Stromer-Galley -
Mark Warschauer -
Michael Zimmer -
phoebe ayers