This semester’s collaborative Wikipedia assignment will focus on using Wikipedia in the classroom. We’ll be building on your experiences editing Wikipedia last semester and at the editathons this semester (and any other Wikipedia experiences you have).

The Wiki Education Foundation has created a set of online training modules for instructors who are interested in using Wikipedia with their students. We’ll use these modules as the basis for our assignment this semester.

You will work collaboratively in three teams. We will sort out these groups in class.

To begin, everyone should work their way through the Orientation for New Instructors. There are 3 additional modules, each a case study of a possible Wikipedia assignment:

1. Designing a Writing and Research Assignment

2. Designing a Translation Assignment

3. Designing a Media Contribution Assignment

Each team will choose one case study and use it to collaboratively create an assignment to be used as a final (substantial) project in an undergraduate class in one of your disciplines (or a multidisciplinary assignment, if you’d like).

Your completed assignment should include:

– Assignment type and topic, and the (hypothetical) course the assignment will be used in
– Student learning outcomes and goals for this assignment
– What students will do on the assignment
– What students will submit for the assignment
– How you’ll assess students’ work on the assignment

We’ll also include a week for online peer review of the assignment — everyone will take a look at each group’s assignment when it’s a complete draft, to offer constructive feedback.

In your final version that you submit to me, include a brief writeup to discuss these questions:

– What will your students need in order to complete this assignment? Training? Time? Space? How will you ensure that they get it?
– What will you need in order to support your students in their work on this assignment? How will you get it?
– Can you think of any challenges you might encounter as your students work on this assignment? What could you do to mitigate them?
– How do you think your students might benefit from working on this assignment (other than getting a grade)?

While we won’t be publishing this on Wikipedia, I’d like you to do your work on this assignment in Wikipedia to more closely align with what your hypothetical students will do. Please choose one of your group members’ sandbox pages to be the drafting space for your assignment, and use your (and my) talk pages for conversation about this assignment and to ask questions.
Revised: feel free to use any technology you’d like to communicate with your group.

Check-in points:

• March 7th: Complete the Orientation for New Instructors. Draft your work plan.
• March 14th: Begin initial contributions to the assignment (using whatever technology you’d like).
• March 28th: Finish complete draft of assignment, and post on our course group forum. Begin peer review — please comment on your colleagues’ assignment drafts on the course group forum. Note that everyone should comment on each group’s draft.
• April 4th: Peer review phase ends. Begin final work on assignment and writeup.
• April 11th: Final assignment and writeup due — post these on the course site.