Education/News/March 2022/Collection of Good Practices in Wikipedia Education
Collection of Good Practices in Wikipedia Education
We interviewed university lecturers who shared their experience and gave good tips to their colleagues on how to switch Wikipedia article writing into their subjects at the university. They will also talk about their relationship with Wikipedia and other Wikipedia-related educational projects.
Here are some snippets from the interviews:
Alo Peets, University of Tartu: “In my opinion, Wikipedia is an educational project and it should be improved mostly through university teaching. We should not expect professionals to write articles on Wikipedia because their time is too expensive. However, it is a good task for the students, who also acquire new knowledge in the process.”
Kaupo Kukli, University of Tartu: “I teach subjects like film technology and nanotechnology materials at the university. To complete the course, my students must take an exam and submit a paper or presentation. I thought that a paper can be replaced by a thorough Wikipedia article. For a student wiki article is basically a publication, probably the first one, and for some of them may be also the last one. I give points for paperwork and I think a good Wikipedia article is worth a lot of points. It is a text that stays public and does not go in the drawer. Also, via writing students learn much more about the topic than they do just reading the materials.”
Ursula Erik, Estonian University of Life Sciences: “I think the task of writing a Wikipedia article is very necessary and develops academic writing skills, including citation and spelling. The use of terms is important. There is no need to fear that the lecturer has to know all technical aspects of the Wikipedia article. Students are happy to help each other and young people are very good at computers and technology. Wikipedia also has some great tutorials and instructional videos that help students.”
Ann Siiman, University of Tartu: “I like Wikipedia article task. Students can learn how to select sources, how to refer, cite and give and receive feedback from fellow students and faculty. Creating a wiki article provides students with more responsibility and motivation, as it is a public text that creates societal value.”
In 2021, the 11th-grade students of Kadrina Secondary School wrote articles for Wikipedia. According to them the task was developing and useful and they learned much about the topic. The most difficult part in article writing was to find the necessary information and add the correct links. But they most enjoyed the feeling that they could do something themselves. One student said: “While reading Wikipedia I always thought that the person who writes this information must be really smart. Now I know that anyone can do it. ”
The series of interviews is also meant to celebrate the 20th anniversary year of Estonian Wikipedia. They were posted in the series of Wikipedian Observations.