Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classroom coordination/Archive 2

WP:POST; and Minnesota
I am sure most will have seen it already, but this story in the Signpost may interest you if you have not. I have been identifying the relevant articles from the blog posting and adding to a list on the talk page. It is interesting how so many have had problems with uploading images, for example.

And the course notes for the Minnesota project are interesting: particularly the "important" note, highlighting issues of copyright and (pseudo)anonymity. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:20, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much. I had read that article with interest.  Durova Charge! 09:10, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Better late than never
I just learned that my articles on 'Wikis and Wikipedia as a Teaching Tool' has been published for few weeks now :) Enjoy! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Congrats!↔NMajdan &bull;talk 19:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

English class collaboration
Hi ya'll. I tried to steer this English class towards this WikiProject, but I think we're going to have to steer to over there at Talk:Sloshball. Any pointers for them would be very helpful at this point - they're hitting a lot of policy/guideline red flags. JoeSmack Talk 21:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Renaissance Culture course
These may be of interest:
 * http://stevelawson.name/seealso/archives/2007/05/so_what_can_we_teach_using_wikipeida.html
 * http://rencult.pbwiki.com/

A "first year experience" seminar at Colorado College did a project involving the following articles: --ragesoss 02:00, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Art and Devotion in the San Marco Monastery
 * Dante's Satan
 * The Medici at San Lorenzo
 * Ugolino and Dante
 * The Reformation and art
 * Art Patronage of Julius II
 * Machiavelli as a dramatist
 * Petrarch's and Shakespeare's Sonnets

Another possible project
is contacting a lot of people looking for help with a class-related project. I'm going to send him over here. Others may want to contact him.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 21:11, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks NMajdan! I just got here and see you already put a message here. So much to learn! Thelmadatter 21:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Possible western civilization project
As a lot of students seem to use Wikipedia and forming arguments is an essential part of history courses, I'm thinking of offering my students a bonus assignment with the following instructions:


 * An administrator at Wikipedia contacted me about coordinating some kind of project with my students and that website. As you can see in the attached discussion from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Chevrolet_Corvette_in_popular_culture, another editor has also suggested that a good exercise for my students would be to have them read WP:NOT and try to formulate arguments in favor of pop culture articles.  I am particularly interested in arguments as to how these types of articles are helpful for understanding Western Civilization.  So, I have set up a special page at User:Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles/Why in popular culture articles are an asset to Wikipedia and do not violate policies that you may develop for bonus points.  There are five key instructions to keep in mind: 1) DO NOT REVEAL MY IDENTITY; 2) DO NOT REVEAL YOUR IDENTITY; 3) DO NOT VANDALIZE THIS OR OTHER ARTICLES ON WIKIPEDIA; 4) MAINTAIN CIVILITY AT ALL TIMES; and 5) FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS ASSIGNMENT, ONLY PARTICIPATE IN THE SPECIAL USERSPACE ARTICLE FOR POSTING YOUR ARGUMENTS AND DO NOT POST THEM IN ARTICLES FOR DELETION AS WELL.  This article is part of a class assignment designed to teach students about how Wikipedia editing and policies work.  To earn points for this assignment, indicate on the final attendance sheet whether or not you contributed (you need not provide “evidence” that you contributed; just be honest).

I will check back on this talk page to see if such a thing sounds viable and if y'all have any additional suggestions. Best, -- Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 16:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

EducationalAssignment date suggestion
I made a couple of suggestions at Template talk:EducationalAssignment and added the template to WP:SUP. (SEWilco 18:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC))

October 2007 activities
Some projects are mentioned here. The ArsTechnica article includes a link to a Powerpoint with some interesting summaries. (SEWilco 18:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC))

The Life of Reason
This message to me and my response show a class project in development, if anyone more experienced than I in such matters would like to continue the contact with this teacher. - TexasAndroid 15:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Is this the way this project is supposed to work?
Can students really just create what is basically a test page/outline in the main space and claim it's a school project so it's ok? Shouldn't something like Kentucky_Writing_Portfolio be done in user space and at least be formed into an article first.Ridernyc (talk) 19:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Well that got deleted, whatever it was. Articles in main space should be about encyclopedic subjects, not about a writing project itself.  (SEWilco (talk) 19:12, 20 November 2007 (UTC))
 * it ended up getting moved. I was right you can't just create anything in the mainspace. Just wanted to clarify things since I've seen tons of articles that are school projects get deleted. Ridernyc (talk) 19:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Both Wikibooks and Wikiversity allow various kinds of classroom, school, or avocational projects (Wikiversity is better if the aim of creating the materials is in the creation, while Wikibooks is better if you want to build towards a stable and usable textbook). -- SB_Johnny | talk  11:45, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Question regarding "recruiting" classes
As a bit of an outsider, it seems to me that it might be beneficial if members of the project were to contact their local schools, particularly colleges, and let them know that this project exists. Maybe, just maybe, it might be useful if members could arrange specific times for Meetups in their areas, and drop notices to the various schools in the area about these meetings, where teachers there might be able to speak face-to-face with a few experienced editors about the project. John Carter (talk) 16:56, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Those are good ideas. I plan on doing some workshops for teachers in the Providence, Rhode Island area on using wiki for science education.  I would be interested in getting in touch with wiki editors who might be interested in participating (either meetup, or online) with helping teachers on classroom projects.  Feel free to leave a message on my talk page here or at wikiversity.  --mikeu (talk) 14:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Foreign language classes?
I have been told that there are a remarkable number of articles in foreign-language wikis which are at best woefully inadequate in English. Has there ever been an effort to try to get some classes studying foreign languages to maybe, as part of a class project, translate articles from the languages they're studying? The results might not be ideal, but I'm sure that we would get much better coverage of several articles if we could find a way to get such activity started. John Carter (talk) 00:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:MMM
I've only just seen this page, though I did register our class's project as an educational project some time ago. But for those who are not keeping track of WP:SUP, here's a link to Murder, Madness, and Mayhem. I should say that the wikipedia FA-Team have been an invaluable help over the semester. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 23:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * And to follow up, though still in the course of the project, I have written up a short essay reflecting on my experience. I'd be pleased for any feedback, or if it proved of use or interest to anybody else. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 16:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Category shuffle
I had the audacity of doing all these changes.

New subcategory, “Category:Wikipedia school and university projects”, added to “Category:Wikipedia related projects”

Removed "Category:Wikipedia related projects" from page “Wikipedia:School and university projects”

Added "Category:Wikipedia school and university projects" to pages Wikipedia:School and university projects Wikipedia:school and university projects - instructions for teachers and lecturers Wikipedia:School and university projects - instructions for students Wikipedia:School and university projects/Piotrus educational boilerplate and all other such subpages, like: Wikipedia:School and university projects/ENTO 431 Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Navigation bar Wikipedia:School and university projects/Indiana CMCL Wikipedia:School and university projects/ UCI LPS Wikipedia:School and university projects/Open Source Culture

Removed "Category:Wikipedia basic information" from pages Wikipedia:School and university projects Wikipedia:School and university projects - instructions for teachers and lecturers Wikipedia:School and university projects - instructions for students

Subcategory, “Category:Wikipedia school and university projects”, added to “Category:Wikipedia articles as assignments”

Removed "Category:Wikipedia articles as assignments" from page “Wikipedia:School and university projects”

If you would like to get more detailed information, please feel free to ask.

vapmachado talk.cw 03:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Classroom coordination
Is classroom coordination required or recommended? We had a group of about a dozen graduate students who familiarized themselves with Wiki guidelines and set about writing one article each for a particular class. At least two of the pages ended up with B ratings. Reference this blog for details. The instructor hopes to use this approach again in the future. I'm the instructor's informal Wiki adviser and would be happy to set up the WikiProject page and tag the articles so he is set up for next time. One user complained about lack of coordination and I'd like to avoid any problems. --Pat (talk) 06:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * As you can see, this project is rather moribund. I have some advice here on ensuring classroom assignments go well, and I hope to formulate a more detailed set of recommendations here.  --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 01:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Outreach
I think it would be a good idea to assign each project listed at WP:SUP to an active member of our wikiproject. This member should contact the person responsible for the course, inform them of our/his/her existence, offer help, inform them of WP:SUP existence, and ask for information about their assignments: external links, projected end dates, list of student/editors, list of articles to be edited, and ensure that by the end of the project, the diffs to what have changed are shown, the project is moved to 'past projects', the instructor is pressured to write his/her experiences down and share with us and the instructor and the students had a wikipedian who helped them throught it. Further, we should reach to even older, finished projects, try to contact past instructors and ask them for missing info (many projects listed at SUP have no student/article lists and post-assignment summaries).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Instructions for students
I will be having a class of ~30 students edit a sociology related article starting next week. Any comments on my instruction page for students appreciated (is something unclear? did I make a typo? etc.). Thanks, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:59, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Sociology course using Wikipedia
A course I am teaching will have some students contribute to Wikipedia. Please see list of users and articles at Wikipedia:School and university projects/User:Piotrus/Summer 2008 if interested. We would all appreciate if members of WikiProject Classroom coordination would offer advice to the students, and review the progress of their work. The assignment will last till the July 30.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:40, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

American Indian civil rights
FYI, there is a class project to create this page, see here for more info. --mikeu talk 18:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikiversity
The open task list mentions cooperation with Wikiversity. The mission of Wikiversity is to:
 * Create and host a range of free-content, multilingual learning materials/resources, for all age groups in all languages
 * Host scholarly/learning projects and communities that support these materials
 * Complement and develop existing Wikimedia projects (eg. a project devoted to finding good sources for Wikipedia articles)

For projects that might be outside the scope of Wikipedia you could refer an educator to v:Wikiversity:School and university projects to start a learning project there. The editors at Wikiversity would also be interested in discussing other collaboration ideas. Feel free to contact me or leave a message at v:Wikiversity:Colloquium. (reposted) --mikeu talk 18:36, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Deletion and school projects
I see I posted this at the wrong wikiproject Deletion of teacher assigned projects Kopachuk Middle School...there has been a reply to whit that the student in order to meet his teacher's pre-requisite had to use user space rather than article space. Why invite teachers and students to learn and write articles on wikipedia if they are deleted? It seems moot. SriMesh | talk  16:51, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is another school project where the teacher has asked the kids to write about local Edmonton bands which got speedy deleted, and the kids are giving up and asking why bother with the teacher's assignment if they won't stay on wikipedia. band article deletion The articles created at this Unannounced class project for the most part survived AFD, and they received help from various wikipedians about manual of style to help them through the AFD nominations. SriMesh | talk  23:05, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject membership - Admins - coordinators
Can this Wikipedia talk:School and university projects page have membership and admins -perhaps through wikiproject Education  or its child projects, WikiProject Education in Australia, WikiProject Education in Canada, WikiProject Universities, WikiProject Schools, WikiProject School Years, WikiProject Alternative education, WikiProject Homeschooling... to help find articles which come onto wikipedia as is above and get deleted before it is discovered they are part of a class project, so that the teacher/students can be contacted about templates etc. This message also posted at the other wikiprojects as well. Kind Regards SriMesh |  talk  23:19, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
 * found it Classroom coordination with coordinators, and instructions for students with contacts. Tis already made.  SriMesh |  talk  23:44, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Editor assistance needed cleaning up after a disruptive school project
Please read Village pump (miscellaneous). Uncle G (talk) 12:58, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

New WikiProject proposal.
Hi everyone. After some discussions here, I have proposed that we create WikiPedia Outreach as a WikiProject. The project would serve as an umbrella/parent project for all outreach/recruitment of new editors, including school and university projects. The discussion is located here. I'd appreciate everyone's input. // roux    07:16, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Is there a template?
I was looking for some sort of welcome template that says roughly: "Welcome to Wikipedia...etc. It appears that your work on Wikipedia is part of a class project. Please check out our guidelines for school projects: [link], and encourage your instructor to read up on Wikipedia school projects [here]." Does something like this already exist? If not, I think it would be helpful. I'm going to write some boilerplate to put on the user pages of what appears to be a group of library science students collaborating on a series of articles about librarians. They are doing a good job, but I think it's nice to be especially welcoming to students so hopefully more of them will stick around after their assignments are done. I'll post my boilerplate here for commentary and suggestions on how to categorize it, if you'd like to turn it into a template. Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 17:40, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Good point, we need such templates. I'll see what can be done. I've requested creation of such templates here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:22, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I mentioned this to an interested user on my talk page, but I don't know if s/he followed up on it. I've got a draft of a template here: User:Katr67/Sandbox, using the welcome template as a base. Feel free to use or modify the text as you see fit. (Please don't edit in my sandbox though. Thanks.) Let me know on my talk page if you decide to take this "live"--I'm cleaning up my watchlist and I'm going to take this page off of it. Katr67 (talk) 19:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, I am going to create the welcomestudent and welcometeacher templates soon. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:06, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

"This is for CSC300 assignment"
That's the message on the user page of User:G7yunghi, and s/he has been creating an unencyclopedic article at Protect your privacy online (its third title). I wonder whethere there's a whole bunch of students out there with misguided instructions? You seem to be the project to look at it, so over to you. I just dropped past that article while stub-sorting. Searching User pages on the course code finds User:Cant google me (who created a 5k article in his/her first edit) and User:Nauht who seems to have been doing the course last year. PamD (talk) 12:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "I wonder whethere there's a whole bunch of students out there with misguided instructions?" Wouldn't be the first time. We try to reach as many as we can, but there are always those that slip through the net... thanks for reporting this one in.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)