Wikiversity talk:School and university projects

confused
please help me! i don't know how i should start! what should i do after i created an account? i don't want to edit pages, i just want to learn articles.


 * Try starting at the portals. --JWSchmidt 18:58, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

project?
There seems to be a number of students from University of Sofia, Bulgaria. Most of the edits are on a userpage. See, User:Petar, User:Gomita, User:Nina Koleva - in particular the wikiversity contacts box at the bottom, with links to wv-de. Not sure who started the project. --mikeu 01:13, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Dear Sir, Madam,
I am Manuel from www.adelaidelanguages.com. I teach French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish from home. I would like to extend these services via the Internet, maybe using Moodle.

I need to ask two things:

1 - Re: Moodle, how can I use it to teach on-line, and is there a webpage to show me how I can use it?

2 - Re: Language Courses, are there any I could use for English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish that I could use together with my own material?

Thank you in advance

Yours sincerely

Manuel seixo

manuel.1@bigpond.com


 * Reply: Thanks for posting, Manuel. I browsed AdelaideLanguages.com and noticed that it is a fee-based service. Wikiversity is a free all-volunteer open learning community that believes in share and share-alike. Here's what we have here in response to your query:
 * Wikiversity has a Moodle learning module and an external test environment under development.
 * We are devloping a Language and Literature school with Foreign Language Learning and Multilingual Studies departments which include all the languages you mentioned.
 * Wikiversity is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 and the GNU Free Documentation License. You are free and welcome to participate at Wikiversity as it suits you according to the terms of use. Thanks for your interest! --CQ 06:46, 27 July 2009 (UTC)


 * If you are feeling ambitious we have an installation of Moodle that can be used to test the software and try out the features. See our Sandbox Server Moodle for more information.


 * In addition to what you can find here on the English Wikiveristy there are also learning resources available in French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and some other languages. Students might find Wiktionary to be very handy and there are reading materials in multiple languages at Wikisource and language textbooks at Wikibooks.


 * Let us know if there is anything more specific that you are looking for, and we'll try to help. --mikeu talk 09:44, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

strategy wikimedia - Proposals
Please see
 * Proposal:Improve interfacing with academia
 * Proposal:Integrated educational experience
 * Proposal:Wikimedia for Education
 * Proposal:Wiki-assisted University and School
 * also: Category:Proposals for schools and schooling, Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat (try) 19:01, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Feedback for reports
For the Reports (also at betawikiversity) some feedback would be nice. Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat (try) 18:18, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Advice on how to start please
Hello,

I would like to create curriculum resources using Wiki-media. Specifically, I would like to create a space where teachers, parents, and other interested parties can collaborate to create lessons on specific reading lists using the educational approach outlined in The Paideia Proposal, Paideia Problems and Possibilities, and The Paideia Program by Mortimer J. Adler and the Paideia Group.

Let me be even more concrete. The initial project would consist of providing lesson resources and plans for teaching specific works like Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe, or Plato's Apology. Charles Lamb's My First Play is a work I've already contributed to Wikisources, so I'll use it as my one specific example.

Wiki contributers would collaborate to provide background knowledge, skill development lessons, and seminar questions and resources for a work like Lamb's My First Play. The first category, "background knowledge" would include things like a map of 18th century London, definitions of unfamiliar words in the text, information about references made by Lamb to unfamiliar people, places, and events, etc. These sorts of contributions would contribute to what The Paideia Proposal calls Column One education.

Contributers would also collaborate on Column Two, the skills of learning, education by contributing resources or lesson plans conducive to coaching students in higher level reading skills, research skills, etc. Coaching focuses on the language arts of listening, speaking, reading, and writing in addition to scientific arts like observing, measuring, calculating, reasearching, etc. In the case of Lamb's My First Play, the language arts would be more prominent, but other works may focus more on the scientific arts. This listing is not exhaustive; there are other skills of learning too.

Finally, contributers would work together through the wiki to provide Socratic seminar questions, cross references, links to the great ideas, etc. in order to provide for Column Three education, which focuses on increasing understanding of ideas.

I'm asking for help on how to get started on this project using Wikiversity and other wikis like Wikisources, Wiktionary, and Wikipedia. I will appreciate any guidance you can provide. Thank you. Majrjejm 19:25, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I suggest creating resources named Gettysburg Address, Robinson Crusoe, Plato's Apology, and Charles Lamb's My First Play. You could have three sections named "Background knowledge", "Coaching skills", and "Increase your understanding" for each resource, with links for each lesson that you plan to develop under the appropriate section heading. -- dark lama  19:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Great advice. I think I'll do that. However, I have another question. How would you suggest organizing the resources into a course. For example, there may be 20 works to be covered by high school freshment. I'd like to organized those works into a course. In addition, the courses add up to a full school program. Should I start a "school" named "Paideia School" and include the courses in it? Students would be able to follow the program I'm envisioning and earn a high school diploma. Indeed, we have 18 students enrolled in a bricks and mortar Paideia High School now. Thanks. Majrjejm 20:18, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Welcome. One option is use categories e.g., make sure each of these pages belongs to the category Category:Course X. That category can, in turn be a sub-category of say Category:Paideia High School. Another option (which can be also be used) is structure the pages as sub-pages e.g., Paideia High School/Course X/Gettysburg Address etc. For more see Help:Categories and Help:Subpages. Here's an example: University of Canberra and Category:University of Canberra. One example course within this University is Motivation and emotion. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 20:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Wikiversity still is very open and resources may be organized in many different ways. One of the differences between Wikiversity and Wikipedia is that Wikiversity allows subpages in mainspace. You can create a class on a topic, and then subtopics can have pages underneath the topic. I'm working on a controversial field, Cold fusion, and if you look that over, you might get some ideas. I can create, way down in this structure, pages that are very specific, I can create individual student papers and reports, etc. It's all a work in progress and Talk pages with heavy discussion will become resource pages that express some kind of consensus. Or alternate views.

Ultimately, we'd like you to build, if possible, resources that are for general use, but there is not requirement that you do this. But please don't do one thing: don't create a large number of individual pages in mainspace, unless these really do belong as separate 'courses' or the like. Okay, maybe for some purposes that would be okay! After all, students could create some "articles" on things for Wikiversity. But this kind of class project can quickly become a difficult-to-maintain mess. For an example of what was better, see 18th_century_European_scholarly_societies_and_academies. This was a project of an actual university course, but the individual society pages were created individually in mainspace. Then an admin thought that one of them was a 'conspiracy theory' and deleted it. In mainspace, pages can and will be subject to lots of independent editing and vandalism, for that matter. A page in subspace, as these pages were eventually moved, is more likely to be left as-is, and it's easily seen as connected with the rest of the pages! --Abd 21:06, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate all the comments! Thank you. I'm following most of it, but part of the problem I faced is that I lack experience with wikis. My first foray into the wiki-world was the simple posting of Lamb's My First Play on Wikisources. I may need to gain more experience before I can understand all of your suggestions. I'm still at a bit of a loss as to how to organize my idea. However, I think the idea of organizing as Paideia High School/Course: Person and Society/Work: Gettysburg Address or something like that would work well. I'm still stuck, though, on whether to make the first structure a "school" or a "category." Majrjejm 21:52, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Take a general page if you ask me, users without knowledge in wiki things do not perhaps understand or see categories (fast)? (also ask yourself how you reacted, others will be perhaps similar) Though I find the cateories (using as tags) a great thing. If you want, you can also ask in the chat for fast feedback. If you would like we could create for you the basic skeleton and you can "just" fill in the content? Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat + Identi.ca 22:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree with Erkan here - start simple. If/when a single page gets too large, then the content can easily be moved into separate pages. Here's a good example of a course on a single page Composing educational resources. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 23:01, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Moved from page - abandoned project ideas

 * User:Rivcal~enwikiversity/Ms. Ruther's class (2007)
 * Human Computer Interaction (HCI) (Fall 2007) - University of Utah. half the class made accounts, then left.
 * Cow eye dissection (2008) - Magee Secondary school, Mr. Rozitis grade 8 science, incomplete notes
 * Peace Studies in Africa - not quite a concept outline

Redesign page
I find the page hard to cope with as it sprawls with so much information. How would people feel about redesigning it so that it functions more as a portal page, or indeed creating a portal page?Leutha 08:32, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * As you might have noticed, asking how possibly absent "people" feel about redesigning a page hardly ever gets the job done. A lot of pages were created in a burst of enthusiasm with little experience as to how to actually organize a project like this. Redesigning this page is substantial work. I'll do it if invited. Right now, I'm dealing with overall cleanup process, and come across these things as part of it. Organizing Wikiversity is a highly educational activity. We will get more of the community involved in it. Many hands make short work. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 03:23, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Seeking support for a new course project
Hi -- I'm interested in setting up a undergraduate course project that involves university students individually creating wikiversity pages related to the course subject (Celtic dance). I'd very much appreciate any advice anyone cares to offer on setting this up! Thanks so much.

--HeatherCBU (discuss • contribs) 20:25, 16 July 2020 (UTC)


 * This can work well. See Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories for an example where several instructors have had students create Wikiversity pages for their course subject. Motivation and emotion is another long-term project where students create subpages for a given course project.
 * It is easier if we either give the students pre-formed links to the pages they will create (if you know the titles in advance) or a simple input box they can fill out to create the page. That way their pages are created in the right place.
 * It is also much easier if the project spans a period of time (at least a week or two), so that students can get started, learn the technology, give the software time to recognize their account and give them permission to create content and add links, etc. If we know in advance what they will be working on and when, we can try to help you and them along the way.
 * Specifically try to avoid a situation where they all wait until the last minute to create their pages and add their content. As I have posted elsewhere, technology senses deadline panic and generally refuses to cooperate. It's kind of a Murphy's Law corollary.
 * Try creating an example yourself of what you are expecting students to do, both so you are familiar with issues they may encounter, and so they have an example of what you are asking them to do.
 * Be prepared to edit what they have created, or use the Talk page on their pages to make constructive suggestions.
 * Be comfortable in constructivist learning. Turning students loose and letting them create content is a wonderful learning experience. They will learn and remember, and typically be very proud of their efforts. And some will surprise you for how they choose to interpret your instructions or what they decide to create. Sometimes good surprises, sometimes just surprises. :-)
 * Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 21:48, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Dave! This is very helpful advice and the psych example is particularly helpful as a model. I definitely plan on having the students learn some wiki editing skills gradually and won't have them do it at the last minute. This is a project for the fall; it won't be due until November some time. I will integrate small editing activities prior to that -- not sure yet what the timeline will be but they'll start in either Sept or Oct. I won't know what the students will write about until later, but I can create the links to their pages once I know. --173.241.96.83 (discuss) 12:35, 19 July 2020 (UTC)


 * See Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Summer II/Section 01 for a page design and input box that allows students to create pages in the correct location, and then automatically displays links to the pages. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:53, 19 July 2020 (UTC)