My Notes
Categories
Students select, research, and then post an article on an inorganic compound to Wikipedia. The compounds are chosen from a list of “stubs” (short articles that need to be expanded) found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inorganic_compound_stubs and might include such items as the synthesis, processes of isolation, structure, interesting facts about the compound in history, and/or an application of the compound. All references used come from primary literature or edited secondary literature like Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry (i.e. NOT textbooks). Students become familar with participating in a Web 2.0 community they use, become more familar with the chemical literature, and develop research and collaboration skills.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| wiki.doc | 41 KB |
| Expanding a Wikipedia Stub for an Inorganic Compound.doc | 53 KB |
- Understand what kinds of topics fall under “Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry” and become an “expert” in the chemistry of a particular inorganic compound
- Utilize appropriate chemical literature resources, including both print and electronic sources, to prepare an accurate summary of the chemistry of a particular inorganic compound for a general chemistry audience
- Become familiar with wikis and commenting as Web 2.0 technologies, including using basic markup language and adhering to a particular community’s style and formatting conventions
A computer, access to the internet, and a good selection of chemistry journals (and/or interlibrary loan).
Here is the structure I use:
· Week 4: Students submit their topic
· Week 6: Students submit a list of 8 possible references
· Week 10: Students submit a rough draft, which is graded (for effort) and returned with comments
· Week 14: Students post their final version to Wikipedia. The rest of the students are “encouraged” to read their classmates’ articles (there will be a short section (matching) on the next exam). The final entry is graded for accuracy, completeness, citation, and adherence to Wikipedia style and format.
Challenges I've encountered:
· Depending on the compound chosen, some of the best references were old, and hard to obtain by interlibrary loan (especially if students waited too late to request them!).
o Outcome: Out of 14 students, one student changed topics, three other students were able to obtain the needed articles through other means.
· Several of the needed articles were in languages other than English
o Outcome: Students learned how to collaborate (go find someone who knew German, French, or Russian) and/or how to use Chemical dictionaries (GermanàEnglish, for example) and machine translation to obtain basic information
· Some students were unsure about the technology
o Outcome: They figured it out, and felt very proud of themselves!
Evaluation
I grade the articles (after being posted) for content, style, and formatting convention taking into consideration the variety/quality of references used and paying particular attention to clarity and consiseness of writing. On the final exam, I also included a matching section with the compounds on one side, and one of the possible uses for them on the other to check that they had read their classmates' posts.
Students generally improved their writing significantly between the first draft and final post; they had the most trouble being consise and editing the markup language such that items had appropriate subscripts and superscripts. On the multiple choice section I included (as a bonus question, it turned out) this past year on my final exam: Out of 13 students, 3 had 13/13 correct. 5 had between 10-12/13 correct, 3 had between 6-9 correct, and 2 had 2 or fewer correct. I also (unsolicited) obtained the following comments on course evaluations or by e-mail:
· “Hi Lori! Well, I've pretty much finished posting my wiki article, probably the coolest thing I’ve ever learned how to do.”
· “The wiki idea is so much better than a paper!”
· “Wikipedia project was both fun and challenging. Fun in that we got to do research from scratch about material we did not know.”
· “Working on the wiki article was very interesting.”
· “Posting a wiki was so hard but so cool!”