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

[Mark Warschauer]

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 at albany.edu
>http://www.albany.edu/~jstromer 
>
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
>>  [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of David M Silver
>>  Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 3:44 PM
>>  To: air-l at 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
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