Using Wikipedia in the classroom

[youngr02]

Hello,

I am a student teacher carrying out a small research project on the use of Wikipedia and classroom learning. Essentially I get the pupils to explain topics from their Graphic Communication course with their information being uploaded to the Wikipedia website. I was looking for any information to the following questions. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.


1. What were the pupils using Wikipedia for? (For example were they carrying out classroom research, editing information or adding information to Wikipedia?)

2. How accurate / useful did the pupils find the information?

3. Did the use of Wikipedia provide a positive outcome to the lesson or series of lessons? (Were the pupils well motivated? Did they feel a sense of pride that their information was online for all to see?)

[scrivener]

Hi youngr02 and welcome to TTC.

I haven't used Wikipedia in the classroom, but I am planning on having at least two of my classes working on their own Wiki, using the Open Source MediaWiki software. My literature students will use it to create their own online encyclopedia of literary terms, vocabulary words, and readers' guides for the works we read in class. I haven't figured out how I'm going to use it in my algebra classes yet, but I'm hoping to think of something useful by the end of summer.


ps: Have you seen this thread (http://www.theteacherscorner.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2791)? :)

[scrivener]

Hi youngr02:

I just checked out your Wikilink, and as an active editor at Wikipedia, I can assure you that someone will nominate this page for deletion, and it will either be edited or it will be deleted. Wikipedia exists as an encyclopedia for the general readership, meaning that as long as an article is of notable interest, it will survive. An article intended only for the use of a particular group of people, especially if it has no single purpose (your article covers such topics as "colors in signs," "planometric drawings," and "two-point perspective").

In fact, there's already an article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_(graphical)) about two-point perspective.

It sounds like what you want is to run your own Wiki, which is easily doable with free MediaWiki (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki) software (this is the software that powers Wikipedia). You can set up your own Wiki and let your students do whatever you or they want with it. You'll need an Internet host, but that's not too difficult and not very expensive. If you p/mail me directly, I can point you to a few webhosts who can get you going. I'd be happy to help you get it all set up. And you'll need to do something like this, because your article, as it stands, will not survive the week.

Just so you know, I haven't nominated it for deletion; however, there's no doubt in my mind that someone will.

[scrivener]

followup:

Your article has been tagged for cleanup. I'm surprised the tagger has left your article completely intact. Please. Wikipedia is a valuable resource of encyclopedic information; for the sake of all its users, would you consider doing this project elsewhere? As I have said, I'd be more than happy to set you up either with MediaWiki or some other resource that will allow your students to showcase their work.

[CoolBlue]

tagged for cleanup?

[broadarmel]

Wikispaces is another good open source program for creating your own wikis.

Wikipedia is definitely a useful tool when used within its limits.

[hweber]

pbwiki is another good site to set up your own wiki. Both pbwiki and wikispaces are user friendly and fairly simple to use both have great tutorials.