Legitimizing Wikipedia in the halls of academia means legitimizing the Internet itself as the heir to humanity’s long tradition of knowledge through authorship, scholarship, journalism, and reference. For ten years, I have used Wikipedia and Wikipedia article assignments to anchor the research module in a graduate communications course that also uses hyperlinks as the modern thesis statement, algorithms to explore logic and structure, avatars to understand focus and credibility, blogging to incorporate drafting and feedback, and even Twitter to emphasize sentence clarity and student community—toward a new core curriculum based in the interactive.
The course thesis “The Web Teaches Good Writing and Good Writing Wins the Internet,” proposes writing is more important to the Web than even design—and not academic writing either, but the same direct language that drives Wikipedia usability and global word-of-mouth. Wikipedia teaches research, citation, sources, bibliography, curation, expression, editing, information architecture, interdisciplinary ideation, and is a contrast to original research. I tell students the missing puzzle piece in the Wikipedia logo stands for three types of absent knowledge: what is not entered, what is not articulated well enough, and what is not yet discovered.
The presentation shares how combined Web elements like blogs, wikis, and Tweets inform one another, create a richer classroom experience, and ultimately foster deeper learning and metacognition. Since the course’s success, it has proved versatile and relevant with community college undergrads, medical school students, continuing education students, and in workshops with artists and small business owners. It is a welcome example of mannered, intelligent, and inspiring discussion on social networks in contrast to what currently trends nationally. Because the course is held entirely online, the presentation employs screencaptures of course dialogue, examples, and achievements transcribed by Wikipedia, Wordpress, Twitter, and other applications.
Course Wordpress: https://dotkalm.com/ivoice/syllabus/
Course Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/interactvoice/
TEDx Presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmId1lrxvM0