User:Crtew

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Chad Tew
Dr. Chad Tew is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Southern Indiana, United States. I am interested in journalism and human rights (See User boxes below). This page is about my interest in the Wiki Education Foundation through the courses that I teach using Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikinews.

My banner is a playful jab at my User name. Many of the User names throughout the Wikimedia projects are funny or idiosyncratic. The banner at least provides for a pronunciation of mine. I make no claim to the formal title and I have never met the Queen. As a typical American and much like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, the concept of monarchy and royalty boggles my mind.

I am currently active on Wikipedia as a faculty member. I teach "Introduction to Mass Communications", (Fall 2015),  (Spring 2015),  (Fall 2014),  (Spring 2014),  (Fall 2013),  (Fall 2012),  (Spring 2012), &  (Fall 2011), and I have assigned my Mass Communication students to write an encyclopedic article about a journalist who has been killed while on assignment. The course has been added to the Wikipedia Education Program listing (see below). Digital Photography students will be using Wikimedia Commons to donate photographs that they will use to illustrate Wikipedia articles that currently have no photograph or contain an existing request for a photo. I am also teaching Online Journalism using Wikinews as a lab. The goal is to have a positive impact on the Wikinews community through content creation, collaboration and good citizenship. The advantage for students is that they will be embedded in an online community, learn through doing, and compare the virtual with the brick-and-mortar news operation. Content produced from the online journalism course received well over 100,000+ readers.

Mass Communication students (100 level)
Adopt a journalist who has been killed while reporting or for journalism. Make sure this has been verified through one of the world press freedom organizations. Through your research, make sure the journalist is notable, the subject of "significant coverage" (as defined by Wikipedia policy) in media, as well as enough information in reliable sources for verifiability.

Shortly after you create an account and establish your User page, a member of the Wikipedia Welcome Committee will greet you and offer you some helpful information about getting started in Wikipedia. This includes membership in the Tea House, which is a space for new Wikipedians to get oriented and an activity I highly recommend!

You will learn more about Wikipedia and our project in class. Use the resources page to learn all things Wikipedia! (Thanks to Cindamuse for the compilation!) A more specific guide for our purposes was written by Laura Hale, "Editing Journalists Biographies on Wikipedia," which is available through Wikimedia Commons.

We want to aim for quality work here on Wikipedia! The encyclopedia uses its own assessment guidelines and your articles will be judged by editors based on that system.

The course template contains a basic outline for the content of our articles. You will work on the article in your own User space. After you write a draft, you will work on its clean up. After you have drafted the article, received feedback, and made revisions, you will then submit the article ONLY with your instructor's approval (required).

Use the tips & tricks page to learn more about specific topics. I will be adding to this page as students have more questions.

Use the course rubric and list of tips to review your own article as well as your peers. Write a note on their user "talk" pages and then sign it by typing four tildes (~) afterward. Tell them what you liked about their articles and make suggestions for improvement. When you make suggestions be specific and personalize it for their entry. Treat everybody like you would like to be treated!

Digital Photography students (200 level)
Students in my Digital Photography (Fall 2014) course have been assigned to illustrate a Wikipedia article. Their main accounts will be on Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia. They will illustrate Wikipedia articles with photographs that they take, edit and submit.

Find a Wikipedia article to illustrate through your own original photography. Do this by searching for content that interests you or is the subject of your portfolio and currently has no photographs. If you don't find this search method satisfying, you can also search through the Category:Wikipedia requested photographs to fulfill an existing request! In both cases you can use Special:Search to make better use of the search function.

Wikimedia Commons offers students a superb opportunity to learn about copyright issues. Students will donate their work under the Creative Commons license. They will also learn about how to acquire photographs from government or other resources that can be then be used to illustrate articles.

Online Journalism students (300 level)
Your main accounts will be on Wikinews and  Wikimedia Commons, which are sister projects of Wikipedia in the Wikimedia Foundation family. After the creation of your User pages, a greeter from those sites will give you important starter information that will orient you to those projects.

Wikinews -- whose tagline is "The free news source that you can write!" -- presents its content through the Wikinews web site and through its RSS feed. Audio reports are also prepared for some stories and briefs are read for Audio Wikinews. Wikinews content is also distributed and searchable through Google News and it is promoted through social networking sites. Past news is archived. Be sure to read the current news from Wikinews and test your knowledge of news by taking the World News Quiz.

The Newsroom is the primary site where news stories are created, edited, and discussed before publication. It is also where you can connect with other Wikinews journalists, make requests and read announcements about developments at Wikinews. Interaction with other journalists also takes place around the Water cooler. Good reporting depends on good research tools and the ongoing assessment of the reliability and veracity of your sources, and Wikinews maintains the Reference desk to connect you to sources and to assist in fact checking. If you have any other navigation issues, a good page to help you find what you need is site map.

You will be embedded in the Wikinews institution and so you will want to learn more about its mission, history, role in news production, policies, and code of ethics. The neutral point of view is the essential principle behind both Wikipedia and Wikinews and it should manifest itself in every aspect of your reporting, writing and professional manner.

Review the introduction to Wikinews, how to edit a page, and content guidance before you write an article. At first, you will write synthesis articles to learn how to work in the environment. Later, you will do original reporting. You will then turn to multimedia reporting when you create audio reports and write a photo essay. You should aim to submit quality work to Wikinews. Read the best stories in n:Wikinews:Featured articles, and they can provide you with solid exemplars.

The sister projects also support one another through interlinking. You can create a link from an encyclopedic article to the related news at Wikinews. Likewise Wikinews articles are linked to the encyclopedia. Other interlinks are possible, too.

After you learn more about Wikinews and the sister projects of Wikimedia Foundation, you may want to become an accredited reporter at the Wikinews and active at their support site, which is Wikinewsie.org.

Information for new members of the Wikipedia community

 * Introduction – Wikipedia introduction page.
 * Tutorial – Wikipedia editing tutorial.
 * Questions – the "where to ask questions" directory.
 * FAQ – quick answers to the most common questions.
 * New contributors' help page – a place for new users to post questions and get answers by volunteers who monitor or frequent the page.
 * Help desk – where volunteers answer questions on how to use Wikipedia. Many new users go there for help too.
 * Adopt-a-User – where a new user can be adopted by an experienced user who will be his/her mentor.
 * Your first article – with information about how to create a good first article.

More information
Get to know Wikipedia inside and out by reading the Wikipedia: The Missing Manual.

Keep up to date with the news from Wikipedia community by reading the current issue of the Wikipedia Signpost or the [Wikimedia blog].

Learn about the long-term plans of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikipedia Ambassadors offers information for instructors and materials for teaching outreach.

Category:Wikipedians_in_Evansville,_Indiana