[Air-L] assigning students their college/university wikipedia page

[Darren Purcell]

Gordon,

Thanks for the reply. I never thought much of a difference between a 15-20
page paper and a Wikipedia entry if it was tightly defined. Still, I have
used these as a way to show how they can possibly contribute to knowledge. I
also offer this as group work as well so the work is spread out.

We really need to remove the grand facade from Wikipedia ala the exposure of
the the Wizard of Oz as a real human with frailties and weaknesses.

Darren

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 5:45 PM, Gordon Carlson <gordycarlson at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Dan,
> I saw your email and wanted to quickly respond to you.  I know those looks
> you are talking about (and I have displayed them myself).  I think the
> reason that students don't like to take on Wikipedia entry tasks is less
> their self perceived role as knowledge creator and more than it seems hard.
>  It sounds like a lot of work to many people.  Wikipedia is still seen as an
> encyclopedia by many and those are magical books that strange geniuses work
> hard to make (as most are commercial).  Creating an entry in what seems, to
> many students, to be a polished and published work seems hard.
>
> Whether true or not, I think it would be the same as asking your students
> to write a book or a journal article.  They see it as above and beyond
> writing a paper.
>
> For good or bad, Wikipedia still seems hard to do.
>
> My two cents.  Thanks for reading,
>
> Gordon
> University of Illinois, Chicago
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 5:17 PM, Darren Purcell <dpurcell at ou.edu> wrote:
>
>> 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 at 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 at 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
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>>
>> --
>> Darren Purcell
>> SWAAG Treasurer
>> Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Advisor
>> Dept. of Geography
>> University of Oklahoma
>>
>> Email: dpurcell at ou.edu
>> (405) 325-9193
>> http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/P/Darren.E.Purcell-1/
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
> Gordon Carlson
> C: 541-990-1155
>



-- 
Darren Purcell
SWAAG Treasurer
Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Advisor
Dept. of Geography
University of Oklahoma

Email: dpurcell at ou.edu
(405) 325-9193
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/P/Darren.E.Purcell-1/