Jon Beasley-Murray is an Assistant Professor of French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies in the University of British Columbia (a magnificent campus, by the way). Each year, he assigns term papers to his students, but this year’s languages and literature learners demonstrated their research and learning in another way — by contributing to Wikipedia. In an Agence France-Presse (AFP) interview (published May 11), Beasley-Murrary, said that his students were now required to submit their research as Wikipedia articles, saying that the free online encyclopedia “..seems like a much larger stage, more of a challenge.” ((“Educational Wikipedia.” Islam Online 11 May 2008 12 May 2008 http://www.islamonline.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=117764.))
I have to confess that as I initially read about this, I was disturbed on several levels. But the deeper I got and the more I thought about this assignment, the more it made perfect sense.
I especially like the authenticity of the assignment, because a community of Wikipedians and casual readers alike have an opportunity to comment on the articles, and even make their own edits. The students’ work must stand on its own two feet. Beasley-Murray promised a rarely awarded A+ grade to any student whose article was distinguished as a “Wikipedia Featured Article.”
A third-year student, Eva Shiu said, “I was up nights until three or four a.m. in the morning working on it!” I got addicted to it.” Shiu and her co-authors contributed an article on Gabriel Garc Marquez’s book, “the General in his Labyrinth.” It and one other article were published on the Wikipedia homepage on May 5, as Featured Articles.
The second article’s author, Monica Freudenreich, said that she was most excited by the fact that her efforts and contribution would survive online, and not end out in a bin under her bed.
Of course, logistics would prevent all of us from sending our students to write for Wikipedia. But there are lots of other ways to make learners responsible, not only for learning something, but for doing something useful with it.
My small high school ESOL class is not at the wikipedia level but I did ask for the their research papers to go on the wiki in our Blackboard site. While this is limited to our school community, it really opened up their minds to what a wiki can be.
Hooray for connected learning in action! Fantastic to know that not only is it happening in the world of education, but that it’s also working by engaging students, motivating them to work hard and learn more.
Just goes to show that learning with purpose is always a more engaging factor.
Why would logistics prevent all of us from sending our student’s to Wikipedia. Is it access? Most schools have labs yes? Many have one-to-one or close. Is it filtering? I hope not TOO many schools are blocking Wikipedia?
There’s really no reason “we” can’t do this
Hmmm! What I was thinking was that it seems there are a lot of students out there writing on a lot of topics, many of them similar to the topics other students are researching and writing about. There can be only one Wikipedia article about George Washington or Nelson Mandela.
If you’re teaching Italian Literature, then there may be some room for contributions to Wikipedia.
i think because of the high-rate of people editing good stuff on wiki and turning it into trash makes people not want to send their kids or students to wikipedia. I see errors on there all the time and they are factual errors and not just opinions. Interesting how the net is so open now and shared info cannot be trusted like it use to be.
What a great way to make students responsible for the material and ideas that they have learned! It allows students to share their ideas and thoughts globally, instead of just with others in the classroom. It also teaches students that just as they are changing the internet for positive reasons that people can also manipulate it for negative aspects as well. Lessons should follow allowing students to see that like television, they shouldn’t believe everything they see online! It lends itself to lessons on how to critically analyze online text.