Writing Wikipedia Articles/Week 1

Webinar outline

• 7:00 Welcome to the course. Introduce the course: Why we will be delving into Wikipedia and Open Education. What can our students hope to accomplish?
• 7:05 Pete, Sara, and Bob introduce themselves. Recognize any past students present. Special thanks to our sponsors.
• 7:10 How the course works
  • Hello to students taking the course in the self-paced mode!
  • How to take the course "live" and in self-paced mode. NOTE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME!
  • Is everybody fully registered? Review what needs to be done.
  • Introduce Blackboard Collaborate
  • Introduce Wikipedia course pages (note video)
  • Mention research surveys
• 7:20 General introduction: Why is Wikipedia interesting and worth understanding? What opportunities for the OER movement are envisioned through improving Wikipedia?
  • What is a wiki? Why are wikis useful, and what can be accomplished with them?
  • ACTIVITY: Everybody goes to our Etherpad and makes a few edits.
• 7:25 Five Pillars (the central policies of Wikipedia)
  • ACTIVITY: Put a sentence on your user page.
• 7:30 Tour of an article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources. Cover the following topics:
  • Basic article structure: lead section, infobox, body, see also, references, external links, categories, navboxes.
  • References and sourcing (verifiability)
  • Internal links
  • Neutrality
• 7:40 Tour of the main links in the header bar:
  • Article
  • Edit
  • View history
  • Talk
  • ACTIVITY: Add a few pages to your watch list.

Bullet list from P2PU

The first class will offer a general introduction to Wikipedia and address the following topics.

• Why is Wikipedia interesting and worth understanding?
• What opportunities for the OER movement are envisioned through improving Wikipedia?
• Review basic article structure, references and sourcing (verifiability), internal links, neutrality (using a general interest Wikipedia article)
• Examine how Wikipedia can offer something unique (using a more specialized OER article)
• Tour the main links in each article's header bar
• Learn how to find help on Wikipedia
• Make your first Wikipedia edit - it's easier than you think!

Homework

w:en:Wikipedia:School of Open course/Week 1

Notes for expansion/refinement

• some tips about early assignments here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AInstructor_Basics_How_to_Use_Wikipedia_as_a_Teaching_Tool.pdf&page=5
• Loosely follows this format: Intro to Wikipedia

Editing session

Work through the on-wiki homework tasks; address other editing questions. Or just edit Wikipedia.