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Classroom Exercise: Editing Wikipedia

Submitted by Jim Brown on November 28, 2006 - 12:23pm. | |

In my class today, we edited the Wikipedia entry for the novel we've been reading - Microserfs.

We began by discussing the basics of Wikipedia - what kind of resource it is, how people use it (or how they should use it), and what rules apply when editing entries. Then we looked at the Wikipedia Novels Template. This gave students an idea of the rules of the game and what should or should not (according to the Wikipedia community) go into an article about a novel. Then we spent the rest of the classing making additions.

Here's what the article looked like before our edits.

Here's what it looks like after our edits.

You can also look at each individual edit by visiting the "history" page for this article".

Overall, I think this exercise went really well, and I will definitely do it again in the future. It gives students a better sense of how Wikipedia works as a resource. I also framed the exercise by saying that we were (on some level) experts on this novel, and that we could offer some good information to those reading this article.

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Editing Wiki

Submitted by dsargent on November 28, 2006 - 10:53pm.

Oh yes. I think I remember reading an assignment idea regarding wiki-editing (I'm pretty sure that it was either here, or on the Academic Commons).

Two weeks ago, I assigned this to my students.

I started off the class by having them make a list of all the subjects/niches/etc. in which they felt they were "experts." They had 10 minutes in which to write down EVERYTHING--and I made it clear that anything counted ("Are you one of those people who can list off baseball stats from thirty years ago? Do you know every detail of your favorite author's life and work? Are you a pro at Photoshop? Are you godly at Warcraft?").

At first, they all looked frightened. However, once they started listing their talents, they warmed up to it.

Then we hit the computers. We went to wikipedia and I showed them the basics via the SmartBoard (walked them through things, while I contributed to an article). Once they saw how easy it was for "anyone" to edit wiki...well...those who didn't understand why I wouldn't allow it as a scholarly source for a recent assignment had that "Oh! Now I get it!" look.

Next, those that didn't already have wiki accounts created them--and everyone sent me their usernames (which allowed me to track/grade their contributions).

I gave them the next 20 minutes or so to just read articles in their areas of expertise. When they saw an article that was lacking something--whether it was an issue with the article's content, an external link that would be a good addition, or a reference that ought to be included--they were to add it to their watchlist.

Once they had at least 3 articles in need of revision (the minimum number of contributions for the assignment), they were welcome to get to it.

It turned out wonderfully. They had a blast. And I learned a thing or two as I read their articles/contributions. :-)

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editing/creating wiki

Submitted by bleckb on December 1, 2006 - 10:51pm.

I like this assignment and think I'll try it in a class when I can figure out how to make it work. I've given students the option of creating a wiki for their book club projects. We read some novels that don't have entries. The novel template is something I didn't know about. I hope with a practice bit of editing some of them will give the creation of a new entry a shot.
bleckblog.org

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