My first reaction to all of this is a lot of
surprise. Being young, and actually a Post-Millennial, I am so surprised at how
fast technology has changed since I was in high school just a few years ago –
it’s a little frightening to think about as a future teacher. And I’m also
disappointed at how little my teachers used technology while I was in school.
But beyond the initial surprise, I’m also
really excited to start using some of the strategies that we have talked about,
especially with Wikipedia.
I grew up with the “Wikipedia is bad” motto
drilled into me so I never learned how to use it effectively, but it is
something I want to use in my classroom to engage my students in new and
unexpected ways. I think that one way this could work in my classroom is by
asking my students to write an essay for Wikipedia. I would first go over the
basics of Wikipedia just as we did in class to show them how they can use
Wikipedia correctly and effectively, and then I would ask them to create a
Wikipedia page. The topic of these Wikipedia Pages would depend on the class
curriculum, but I would love to do something where kids were put in reading
groups of around five kids, and each group would read a different book. Then
they would be asked to, as a group, create a Wikipedia page about the book. I
would choose less-known books that don’t have as developed Wikipedia pages. Their
page would have strict guidelines/expectations where kids would have to provide
background information, plot summaries, important quotes, real-life
connections, etc. The kids would create the pages, present them to the class,
and then be assessed based on the Wikipedia Rubric that we looked at today (I
would go over that Rubric with them before). If their pages ranked high enough
on the Wikipedia Rubric (and with my approval), they would be allowed to add to
or edit the Wikipedia page that already features their book, or create a
Wikipedia page if their book doesn’t have one yet. I hope that showing them the
real-life applications of writing would encourage greater participation and
interest in the actual act of writing and dissecting a book. I also think that
this activity would teach them a lot about factual accuracy; they would need to
share correct information not because “my teacher told me to,” but because this
information was going to be shared with the world – they would be the experts
on their book content and it would be their responsibility to share their books
with everyone else.
Wikipedia Grading Rubric:
Mackenzie,
ReplyDeleteI feel the exact same way in terms of Wikipedia. Throughout my life I also had it drilled into me that Wikipedia was the most unreliable thing in the entire world, so I should avoid it like the plague. It took until college to have a professor say that Wikipedia actually can be a fantastic jumping off point to just get some background information about a topic that you don't know much about, and hey! it has some pretty great sources at the bottom. It took until today to have a professor actually tell me that it's ok to cite Wikipedia and explained the different ways to tell whether or not it is credible. I never knew about the grading rubric that you attached until today as well, so that will absolutely help me throughout the coming years as an educator. Thanks for sharing!
I agree 100%! I grew up without having a whole lot of technology in the classroom, and during my undergrad days, Wikipedia was nearly considered a dirty word by a lot of professors. I had no idea the tools that were in place to help foster greater knowledge on behalf of the readers and encourage substantial research responsibility for those posting information. I think having students contribute to page that is lacking information would be such a great exercise to really hone their skills.
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