Lesson Plan for Teachers
Wikipedia course lesson 2
Opening a Sandbox for writing and editing wiki articles. Finding a topic for their wiki page.
Task 1: Using wiki’s backend
Purpose: Introduce the system for writing and editing wiki pages.
Background information:
There are 4 subtasks. You could give each pair/group the whole worksheet and let them work through it, or show them each stage as a lecture and then let them explore:
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Subtask 1: Show students how to register on wiki.
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Subtask 2: Each pair/group explores the sandbox – for example they can try the Wiki adventure.
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Subtask 3: To have their sandbox show useful activity, they might wish to try editing or copy-editing existing pages.
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Subtask 4: Let them see the support network available, for example the Teahouse.
At this stage don’t encourage the students to process any action in the Sandbox itself. There are many restrictions on what can be done, and Wiki editors will block activity that they consider suspicious.
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Activity stages: Lecture, group/individual work
Handouts: 1 Making a sandbox
Task 2: Finding a topic.
Purpose: Get students thinking about possible topics for their own wiki page.
Background information:
There are a number of ways of identifying an appropriate and relevant topic for a contribution to the wiki site. In this activity, students consider a number of options for finding a topic:
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A topic based on what they are interested in. Once students explore this avenue, they should find that this is both inappropriate and irrelevant, as these topics already have detailed wiki pages. Use handout: 2 Finding a topic part 1.
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Asking Bard/ChatGPT. This will offer a number of options. If students check, however, they will find that the answers from AI are not all true, and some topics are too difficult to develop into a page. Use the handout 3 Finding a topic part 2.
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Stubs. Stubs are articles on Wiki that are too short or incomplete and need to be expanded. This may be both appropriate and relevant. Use handout 4 Finding a topic part 3
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Translation of Thai pages into English. This will work fine. There is no handout for this.
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Subvariations of existing topics. For major sites like Architecture, there may not be a site for Architecture of (place)
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Missing articles. Articles that need to be written are indicated in red. Students can also look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles
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Materials: PowerPoint and handouts.​
Handouts:
Task 3: Selecting topics.
Purpose: Students work in groups to select 3-4 potential topics.
Background information:
For each of the potential topics, students are also asked to choose a “model” article that is on a related topic that already has a full article on Wikipedia. This model article will be used throughout the course to help students get ideas about how to write their own article.
Practical guidelines for choosing an article topic include:
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Notability guidelines discussed above.
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Topics that are related to students’ home country such as locations or famous historical figures can be good topics that are not yet on Wikipedia.
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It is not recommended to do controversial topics or topics about living people.
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The topic needs to have enough information in books, articles, or websites that the students will be able to find a lot of information easily.
Handouts: Student workbook page 5 (Or: 5 Selecting possible topics).
This worksheet contains a table with the following 5 columns:
1. Potential topic chosen by the student
2. Comment on your (student) interest in the topic. Why did you (student) choose it? Is it a topic that a lot of people would be interested in? Why or why not?
3. Comment on likely amount of information on the topic. Is it well-known? Is it an Academic subject? Why do you think so?
4. Comment on ease of finding resources. Where do you (student) think you will find information? Websites, newspapers, books? Why?
5. Find a model article for this topic. Why is it a model? What are the key features of the article? What can you learn from the model?