[K12OSN] Wiki Experiment

Sun Dec 3 18:33:55 UTC 2006

wiki.simplycircus.com is the address of our wiki, however you must have a
Simply Circus school account to access it (the wiki holds a large amount of
liceanced material - about 20% of the wiki.  Yes, those articles are locked
for editing, though we encourage commenting on the talk page).

I do not have a link to the journalism class wiki, but I am told its only
available in the classroom when the teachers laptop is plugged in and turned
on.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven Santos
Director, Simply Circus, Inc.
Email: Steven at SimplyCircus.com
 Mail: PO BOX 620753
       Newton, MA 02462
Phone: 781-799-4938
 eFax: 309-214-0899
  Web: www.SimplyCircus.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com]On
> Behalf Of Krsnendu dasa
> Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2006 1:05 PM
> To: Support list for open source software in schools.
> Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Wiki Experiment
>
>
> Interesting experiment. Is there a link to the wiki?
>
> On 03/12/06, Steven Santos <steven at simplycircus.com> wrote:
> > I have just finished a small experiment with my schools
> internal circus arts
> > wiki, and I thought I would share the results, as it may give a
> few of you
> > some ideas (I hope it does!).  Please note that this is NOT a scientific
> > experiment - my testing group was very small, I did not correct
> for almost
> > any outside factors (of which there were many I should have
> corrected for!),
> > and my test group were mostly over-achievers heavily involved in
> > intermediate and advanced classes. YMMV.
> >
> > Like many, we use an array of private internal and public external email
> > lists to facilitate the sharing of information.  Unfortunately,
> not nearly
> > enough of this information makes its way to our internal wiki. So the
> > question arises, what can we do to change this, without putting
> more stress
> > on those who so often answer the questions?
> >
> > When looking at the list of subscribers for one specific list,
> we quickly
> > realized that most of those subscribed to that list were students taking
> > various classes.  So we asked the question: Could we make
> effective use of
> > student time and energy to capture and organize mailing list information
> > into a wiki in a way that is also beneficial to the student?
> >
> > To test this theory, we used 5 groups of students.  All
> students were given
> > the same assignment, namely to document a list conversation as an
> > encyclopedic article, following a specific format. In all cases students
> > were allowed to ask questions to the list, and to there
> instructors. This
> > assignment was part of the class grade for all students involved.
> >
> > Group 1 was our control group.  This group was not given any training or
> > cueing.  These students signed up for lists that had no bearing on their
> > personal interests (i.e. not related to any class they have
> ever taken, and
> > having never expressed an interest in the subject). This group
> consisted of
> > the following students:
> >
> >   5th grade girl
> >   6th grade girl
> >   7th grade boy *
> >   9th grade girl
> >  11th grade girl
> >  Junior girl
> >
> >
> > Group 2 was our middle school group with an interest in the
> subject area.
> > The students in this group were given 45 minutes of training on what was
> > expected, and how to document the conversations.   These
> students were also
> > cued as to what conversations they should each document.  This group
> > consisted of the following students:
> >
> >   7th grade girl
> >   7th grade boy
> >   7th grade girl *
> >   8th grade girl
> >
> >
> > Group 3 was our middle school group with no interest in the
> subject area.
> > The students in this group were given 45 minutes of training on what was
> > expected, and how to document the conversations. This group
> consisted of the
> > following students:
> >
> >   7th grade girl
> >   7th grade girl
> >   8th grade girl
> >   8th grade girl
> >
> > Group 4 was our high school group with an interest in the
> subject area.  The
> > students in this group were given 45 minutes of training on what was
> > expected, and how to document the conversations.  Some cueing
> was done to
> > help specific students identify conversations to document. This group
> > consisted of the following students:
> >
> >   9th grade girl
> >   9th grade girl
> >   9th grade boy
> >  10th grade girl
> >  11th grade girl
> >
> >
> > Group 5 was our collage student group with an interest in the
> subject area.
> > The students in this group were given 45 minutes of training on what was
> > expected, and how to document the conversations. This group
> consisted of the
> > following students:
> >
> >  Freshman boy
> >  Sophomore girl
> >  Junior girl
> >  Junior girl
> >  Senior girl
> >
> >
> > Group 1 produced a total of 9 articles, with 5 of those
> articles deemed to
> > be high quality documentation of the mailing list subjects.  4 of the
> > articles (including 2 of those deemed to be high quality) came from one
> > student, the 7th grade boy.  The other high quality articles
> were produced
> > by the 11th grade girl and collage Junior girl of the group.
> >
> > Group 2 produced a total of 8 articles, with 3 of those
> articles deemed to
> > be high quality documentation of the mailing list subjects. 4 of the
> > articles (including 2 of those deemed to be high quality) came from one
> > student, the 7th grade boy.  The other high quality article
> came from the
> > 8th grade girl.
> >
> > Note: The two 7th grade students denoted with an * are in a
> journalism class
> > together that requires them to document various TV NEWS interviews in a
> > similar manner in a class wiki.  Each of these students
> produced 4 articles
> > each, 2 each being high quality.
> >
> > Group 3 produced 4 articles, none of which were deemed to be
> high quality.
> >
> > Group 4 produced 6 articles, all of which were deemed to be
> high quality.
> >
> > Group 5 produced 5 articles, 4 of which were deemed to be high quality.
> >
> > Correcting for the students in that journalism class, our
> little experiment
> > suggests that high school and collage age students can, with
> some training
> > and support, be utilized in helping to document mailing list
> conversations
> > to a wiki.
> >
> > The two 7th grade journalism students indicate that the more
> practice (and
> > in-class time?) a student has with this process, the better
> they are able to
> > document them.
> >
> > Of the 24 students used for this experiment, only 4 were boys.  This may
> > well skew the results.
> >
> > Almost no in-class time was spent on this project.  More class
> time would
> > likely be helpful.
> >
> > All students felt they got more out of this assignment than
> they would have
> > just writing a paper.
> >
> > The more on-list questions a student asked, the more likely they would
> > produce a high quality article on the subject.  Those that asked no
> > questions almost always produced low quality articles (the 7th grade
> > journalism students were the only exceptions to this).
> >
> > All students had to create original articles from the
> conversations.  We did
> > not look at students expanding existing articles.
> >
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Steven Santos
> > Director, Simply Circus, Inc.
> > Email: Steven at SimplyCircus.com
> >  Mail: PO BOX 620753
> >        Newton, MA 02462
> > Phone: 781-799-4938
> >  eFax: 309-214-0899
> >   Web: www.SimplyCircus.com
> >
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> >
>
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