Using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in higher education (Bookshelf)/Week 4
- Course outline
- How-to
Ask students to create their own sandbox and to use it for creating outlines for their articles
[edit]Sandboxes are pages that can be used to test and experiment with code. Although there is a main sandbox for all Wikipedians to use, it is recommended that each student creates his or her own sandbox. To create a sandbox, simply go to your userpage. In the URL bar, add a /Sandbox after your username, then click the "edit" tab to get started. Have your students play around with making edits and seeing how the formatting works on their sandboxes. For more information, see the about the sandbox page.
Ask students to begin writing a bibliography for their topic on the selected article's talk page
[edit]This section needs to move until after the Wikipedia basics and after the "last steps before your students start to work online. The Wikipedia Basics needs to be moved to Week 4 as well, in my opinion. --Ldavis
An important first step is to create a bibliography of sources about their topic and to familiarize themselves with what the sources say, in order to come to a coherent understanding of what has been written about the topic. Students develop this bibliography, making notes about how each source will be used for the article, on the article's talk page; the talk page serves as a site for planning and a staging ground for information that will be moved to the main page at a later date. Talk pages are a forum for feedback from fellow classmates, Wikipedians, and you.