Cool magazine coverage of Ukraine Education program!
On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Юрій Пероганич <perohanych(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
http://ukrainianweek.com/Society/77273
April 12, 2013 ▪ Liubomyr Krupnytskyi
Wikipedia as a School Project
Oleksandr Zheliba, lecturer at Nizhyn University in Chernihiv Oblast,
encourages his students to write Wikipedia articles instead of reports and
projects
University curricula demand that students be given creative individual
assignments. These largely take the form of “reports” which students often
copy from their predecessors or download from the Internet. Assistant
Professor Oleksandr Zheliba of the Mykola Hohol Nizhyn State University
does not forbid his students from writing reports but offers them an
alternative: for the third year now, students can create (or edit) articles
in Wikipedia. In addition to the obvious advantages for the
Ukrainian-language segment of this online reference resource, this
approach has other benefits. Young people develop a better understanding of
the topics they are working on and also acquire technical skills. Most
importantly though, it changes their attitude towards studies, because the
results of their work are not just seen by their professor, but also by
thousands of online users.
*U.W.: Your experience forces a person to look at Wikipedia from a
different perspective – it transforms from a source of information into a
teaching tool. What led you to this idea?*
About eight years ago, the Ministry of Education introduced a mandatory
course in modern information technology. This course is taken by fifth-year
students at every higher education institution. Specialists specifically
came to our university with a training programme for teachers. Among other
things, it included tasks that would teach students to implement the
results of their work in the form of presentations, web-sites and booklets.
I liked the idea, but when I started working with students, most of them
fell short of the necessary standard. I also taught history and needed to
search for a lot of professional information, finding it in large amounts
in Wikipedia. When I saw that something was incorrect, I submitted my
corrections. This is when I thought of involving students in this type of
activity. So I suggested that they edit Wikipedia as an alternative to
doing projects. If they edited Wikipedia articles, they, no doubt, learned
to search, select, save and sort information.
*READ ALSO: The Light of
Education<http://ukrainianweek.com/History/75920>
*
*U.W.: How does this method differ from others that are usually used by
high school and university teachers? What are its advantages?*
At a meeting of graduates in my high school, I came across an album
displayed on a stand in the literature room. It contained essays that we
wrote as pupils. I was so happy that they had been preserved. How else can
you show a young person that his or her work is important? Following the
established methods of teaching, if you give a task to a pupil (for
example, making a knight out of plasticine), you have to put it on display
for everyone to see so that the child can also see the results of his/her
work and is encouraged to continue to work diligently. In Wikipedia,
everything is in front of the teacher, who can check the work done by a
student. Let’s see, the article was edited by someone: it used to look like
this and these are the changes after editing. You can see the progress:
what was done, who did the work, on what days and even at what time. In
other words, Wikipedia permits the monitoring of both the process and the
end result. Another benefit is that this is not the writing of reports “for
the desk drawer”.. In some cases, they become the starting point for term
papers, but for the most part, they gather dust somewhere on, in or under
the teacher’s desk.
*READ ALSO: Alma Pater <http://ukrainianweek.com/Society/17561>*
*U.W.: I guess that everyone knows the value of a student’s report these
days..*
It is really unfortunate that all of this information (no matter how it is
written) goes down the drain. This does not only pertain to reports. There
was a period at our university, when students made presentations on a
certain topic. But what were these presentations in reality? They took
pieces of information from Wikipedia and other sources… It was not clear
who the real author was. So the benefit was dubious. One pedagogical rule
says: for a person to have the desire to work, he/she needs to see the
point of it. It is important for everyone to understand that the result of
their work can be useful to someone and that their efforts have not been in
vain. Another advantage is a better understanding of the substance of the
material. Confucius once said: “I hear and I forget; I see and I remember;
I do and I understand”.
*U.W.: How do students react to your innovation?*
It depends. There were those who simply wanted to get the highest grade
with a minimum amount of work, but they soon got drawn into it. A student
created an article; I made a few comments and suggested revising some
things. Later, I saw that he was more eager to write the next article and
made fewer mistakes. Then he tackled another article. Students work on
reports in their freshman year. They have archive and regional ethnology
practical work – these are essentially tiny research projects, and their
results are quite suitable for publication in Wikipedia. In my opinion,
this is much more efficient than having this information gather dust until
it is eventually sent to an archive or thrown out as scrap paper. Many
questions arise during the process. A little two-part handbook would be
good to have. One part would contain the rules for editing Wikipedia
articles and a collection of templates needed for a certain branch of
knowledge. The second part would offer tips on writing articles on history
or other subjects.
*READ ALSO: Knowledge is Power – and
Cash<http://ukrainianweek.com/Society/76007>
*
*U.W.: When students work on Wikipedia articles to fulfil a teacher’s
task, doesn’t it contradict the spirit of this electronic encyclopedia,
which is created on a completely voluntary basis?*
Not at all. Each student chooses his/her own form of work and his/her own
area in laboratory classes. If students can write excellent articles for
Wikipedia, let them continue to hone this skill. But if it is not their cup
of tea, then they shouldn’t tackle it. There are other options. In the
first year of studies, history students are taught specialized disciplines.
One of the tasks includes drawing their family tree. Some do it and forget
about it, while others dig deeper. If in their freshman year, students
realize that this is something interesting and become “hooked” on this
work, they could then suggest to the teacher that they would like to edit
this segment of Wikipedia, which will be counted as their individual work.
*U.W.: How did the university administration react to your initiative?
Are any of your colleagues following your example?*
Types of individual work are proposed by a teacher, and are simply
approved at staff meetings. As far as the attitude of the administration is
concerned, there is no objection, just understanding. I know for a fact
that there are teachers who edit Wikipedia articles themselves, but it is
hard for me to say whether they propose this kind of work to their
students. Many come to this idea on their own. Some of my colleagues may
want to work along these lines, but are afraid to admit that they lack
competence in something. Not only before their students but also before
each other. The above-mentioned handbook on editing Wikipedia is not as
important for students, as it is for teachers.
*READ ALSO: Undeclared War: Government Conducts “Creeping
DeUkrainization”<http://ukrainianweek.com/Society/40879>
*
*U.W.: In this case, the community is more virtual than real. Does this
type of work give a sense of community?*
To some, it may be their first experience of unpaid public work that
nevertheless, brought satisfaction. Creating Wikipedia articles may
sometimes hurt youthful maximalism, because you may be corrected, but a
person has to go through this. I think a sense of community comes later,
when a person takes a more conscientious approach. Also, editing conflicts
can arise as you work with other colleagues. You then begin to interact
more closely and learn about the other people working on the same topic.
You have one vision, he/she has another, and you need to find arguments and
present them clearly. This is also something that has to be learned
------------------------------
--
Kind regards
Yuri Perohanych, WMUA BM&ED
--
*Jessie Wild
Learning & Evaluation *
*Wikimedia Foundation*
*
*
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
Donate to Wikimedia <https://donate.wikimedia.org/>