[Foundation-l] Fwd: wikiEducation: The Classroom Wikipedia

[Isabell Long]

Hi,

On Sun, Jul 03, 2011 at 12:14:39AM +0400, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Jul 2011 13:49:58 -0600 (MDT), "Fred Bauder"
> <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
> > We should do this before some aggressive outfit like Wikinfo jumps in...
> > It wouldn't be an anyone can edit wiki. Only authorized student accounts
> > could edit. It would be a teaching tool.
>
> To do this is not a big deal, but it would only have an added value for us
> if the result could be somehow merged into Wikipedia once the assessment
> has been completed. It is not difficult to organize, but it requires some
> preliminary planning (only articles absent in Wikipedia would be assigned?
> What if they did not exist at the time of the assignment but were created
> before the assessment? Who will merge? etc).

Sorry to dampen things, but as we're proposing "what if"s, what if some
of Wikipedia's material was copied to it and it just became a kind of
duplicate of Wikipedia run, as proposed, by the WMF?  There would be admins etc, but
run by students for students: that's not always a good thing.  With
regard to what you said about maybe only articles absent in Wikipedia would be
assigned, that's a good idea (it avoids the direct "what if" mentioned above),
but an assignment you can't straight to a Wikipedia article for
information but actually have to go browsing the web for?  That would
horrify many students I know.  ;-)

It's definitely a good idea though, I'm not disputing that.  I'd
certainly get involved!

Disclaimer: I am a student.  :-)

Isabell.