Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Resources/Discussion 1

Goals - Make students think Wikipedia is cool and make them enthusiastic about assignment. We want them to leave the class saying to their friends "Wow! I get to a do an assignment on Wikipedia!"

Part 1: 10 - 15 minutes

Introduce selves
Briefly introduce Wikipedia (stats, "anyone can edit" - that's you!)
Ask students to choose a topic, and we'll make some edits to it (grammar, clarity, etc.). Then say, "You've just improved Wikipedia!"
Show map of real-time edits around the world. There are real people contributing to Wikipedia! http://www.lkozma.net/wpv/index.html
Discuss ways that people can (and do) contribute to WP.
Explain how the roles we just mentioned translate into "what it means to be a Wikipedian" and part of the community of Wikipedians. (e.g. anyone who makes just one edit is a Wikipedian).

Part 2: 15 - 20 minutes

Large group discussion. Ask the following questions:

Do you use Wikipedia?
What do you use Wikipedia for? What would you be surprised to find on Wikipedia and why?

Guide conversation into a discussion of WP is and is not (in order to briefly illustrate that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and what that really means). Avoid using WP jargon at this point, just explain concepts.

Alternative visualizations

If you have an IRC client available, the live feed of recent changes: #en.wikipedia on irc.wikimedia.org
stats.grok.se for different kinds of articles at different times, e.g., Genetics (in the school year) vs. (in the summer), or YouTube (with weekend spikes) and [http://stats.grok.se/en/200903/Simpsons Simpsons (with spikes when new episodes come out)
Graphics from http://infodisiac.com/blog/
http://nodelay.no.de/ - This one is a nice visualization of live edits, and includes both anons and logged-in edits.

This is based on the discussion plan developed by Awadewit, Etlib, and Ifmicecouldfly, used in Fall 2010.