I am really enthusiastic about the idea of having my student's participate in creating Wikipedia. Most students hate writing long research papers. "What's the point?" they espouse. "Why does any of this matter?" Two questions which can be handily answered once their research paper becomes a Wikipedia article. Their work will no longer be just for the sake of a grade (and their own mastery of the content and developing their writing skills) but an opportunity to contribute to the largest global knowledge database in history!
Before students can be set loose on Wikipedia, however, we will spend some time reading examples of Featured Articles, Good Articles, all the way down to Stub articles, so that they can get a sense for what is expected of a Wikipedia contribution. Once they understand what they are shooting for, they can browse a list of Stub articles in need of punching-up, based on the content area of the course. For example, in a US History course, students might peruse this list of American Old West Stubs or this more general list of US History stubs. They will find a Stub article that interests them, and then do independent research and writing to expand it into at least a C quality article. If none of the Stubs interest them, they can try to find a topic in American History that hasn't even been started on Wikipedia.
This assignment would fall into redefinition on the SAMR scale. Before the internet and Wikipedia, there would be no chance for high school students to be published in an international encyclopedia, let alone the most widely utilized encyclopedia in the world. If Wikipedia were to cease to exist, this assignment would be impossible (though, theoretically, we could start our own Wiki-like encyclopedia). Hopefully the real value of their work and the opportunity to write for a global audience will help motivate my students to work harder and research more thoroughly than they might have done so if they were only writing a research paper for class.
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