Chris Jensen teaches Religious Studies 110 at the University of Saskatchewan. And this year, the class project was to make Wikipedia better.
Specifically, Chris’s students worked together in small groups to research, edit and improve the quality of “Wikipedia articles that were either overly brief or lacking in credible information, with the aim of increasing the quality of Wikipedia’s coverage of East Asian religions.” Once the improved articles were completed and graded, Chris added the articles back into Wikipedia (under the username Usask_RelSt110).
This is all part of a larger trend of schools and universities integrating Wikipedia into their curricula.
Last week, Nora interviewed Chris about the assignment, and how academics can use and contribute to Wikipedia. A shorter version of the interview will air on an upcoming episode of Spark, but in the meantime, you can listen to the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3.
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[Original image by apdk]
I haven’t heard the piece yet, but this is a thought experiment I often use when giving talks. I think that every student should be responsible for authoring and editing one or more Wikipedia articles at some point in school.
It teaches them a couple of very vital 21st-century skills: critical thinking and negotiation.
Great idea for a story. As a Wikipedia contributor, I really appreciate it being used positively in the education context (for once).
You should post links to some of the articles that the class worked on!
@Padraic – check the link to Usask_RelSt110 to see a list of all the articles the class worked on.
One of the things I really liked about this is that it’s kind of taking a ‘cradle to cradle’ design approach, where what would normally be considered simply a ‘byproduct’ of learning (the written record) becomes useful for something else.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_to_cradle
I agree that Wikipedia needs to be edited by accredited professionals.
I love stories like this, and wish I’d had instructors this engaged!
A Prof at UBC named Jon Beasley-Murray has done the same thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Murder_Madness_and_Mayhem
I’ve heard him speak on the subject. It’s wonderful listening to him to describe how he’s used social media like wikipedia and blogging to make his student’s work relevant. He has a great story about an author responding to a students very scathing book review.
It’s great to see Murray’s experience isn’t an isolated incident. Go enlightened educators!
I'm hoping my school board will re-evaluate its policy on wiki-based social networking. Wikipedia gives me a tool to teach my science students how to be critical media consumers.