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Wikipedia:Writing Wikipedia Articles course/Round 3/Week 1

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Week of 6 August 2013

Wikipedia under the hood

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What is Wikipedia? What has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to volunteer their time to build millions of articles in hundreds of languages? We begin with a survey of the project's history, values, and culture.

We will explore how learners increasingly use Wikipedia as scaffolding, as they begin to build a general understanding of a topic. Herein lies an opportunity: how can we work toward a broader understanding of a topic like Open Educational Resources (OER)? Does Wikipedia help us speak a common language about openness in education? If not, what can be done to improve that? The session will conclude with practical steps to create a Wikipedia account and get started editing.

Homework

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Do this:

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  • Complete this brief survey providing basic info about yourself
  • Create a basic Wikipedia user page • videoAbout user pages
  • Join a team on the Teams page - a few sentences will suffice! In addition to a general introduction, please answer the following questions:
    • What are you hoping to get out of this course?
    • Have you ever edited an article on Wikipedia (or another wiki)?
  • Edit one or two articles anywhere on Wikipedia: make a sentence more clear, fix a typo, etc.
    • Check the Wikipedia Community Portal (you'll see a link on the left of every screen) for suggestions of articles that need help with grammar, spelling, illustration, etc.
    • Having trouble finding an article to edit, or not ready yet? Try starting an article in your sandbox -- a place to play around without actually changing "real" encyclopedia entries. Instructional video

Read this:

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These readings will help you get a general familiarity with Wikipedia. You do not need to read every page, but we hope you will find them useful in getting a general feel for the site. The last item will give you some background on open educational resources.

Watch this:

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  • If you'd like to review the "view history" tab (covered in the Week 1 webinar), see this instructional video.
  • Archive of Week 1 class from the previous round of the course (one hour video) available in two formats:
  • Archive of Week 1 lab session from the previous round of the course (one hour video of Q&A with students) available:

Just can't get enough? Extra credit

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  • Read the Open Educational Resources article, or another article on the Communicate OER project Content page. Start thinking about how you might improve the article (later in the course).
  • If you see simple fixes you'd like to make, edit the article.
  • Comment on an OER-related talk page (see theCommunicate OER Content page for ideas)
  • Review one of these articles on the relevant talk page - i.e. is it relevant/thorough? What would you like to see changed, added or deleted? (Hint: the "talk" tab is located just to the right of the "article" tab in the upper left of every article.)
  Writing Wikipedia Articles: The Basics and Beyond (WIKISOO)  
Past courses: MarchMayAugust 2013
February 2014 • February 2017