Sam R. - The Wiki Hero

Sam R. - The Wiki Hero - the new and improved Wikipedia who is only edited by students.

Wikipedia is a great stepping stone into research. One way I would introduce the students to Wikipedia is through a research article/paper that gets put on Wikipedia. But before I allow the kids to go out and start researching and writing their article, they would be introduced to the online encyclopedia. We would browse articles that are on the scale of good to bad to great to horrible. I would show examples of like a C article, explain why its okay, and then show them others. Exposing them to articles on Wikipedia that from a range of credible to not as credible will help them form ideas and knowledge of how to write them. I would also introduce them to the links and sources section of Wikipedia, showing them how to link articles and where the linked ones go and if the websites are good or not.

With a self publishing wiki like Wikipedia, I would have to help the kids along, not just throw them to the lions and say go. Learning about the wiki and their project platform is just as important as the project itself.

On the SAMR scale, having the kids write their articles on a public website/encyclopedia would get their ideas out there; it would give them the experience of either being accepted as an article or rejected/needing revisions. This would fall into redefinition. Without Wikipedia, students would not be able to get their work out there. There would be not encyclopedia for kids to get published in (not to mention that the world wouldn't have access to information from other people from across the globe).

After the assignment, we would go back through and look at each person's, looking at whether they get criticism or praise, hopefully motivating the students to pursue their interests in history further.