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Wikipedia:WikiProject AP Biology 2008

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Join us at WikiProject AP Biology 2011 .


A high school class in North Carolina - Croatan High School in Newport, North Carolina - will contribute to Wikipedia until May 15, 2009. The collective goal is to write biology related articles and bring them up to featured article status (or, good article status).

Croatan's mascot an interesting choice for a coastal community

Feel free to discuss this project. The lead editor is Jimmy Butler. Please notify me of any concerns; especially if they involve the behavior of my students on Wikipedia. They are young (10th grade high school); yet, enthusiastic. With a little patience, this should be an inspirational experience for all.

Goals / Motivation

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  • To improve Wikipedia's coverage of selected articles in Biology, particularly those related to high school level biology.
  • To submit these articles to Wikipedia review processes, such as peer review, good article nominations and featured article candidates.
  • To increase the number of featured articles in this area.

The dreaded "Research Paper" is a standard hurdle for most AP Programs. Rightfully so, being that many college courses require such publications to validate your existence. As a consequence, I have graded literally hundreds of papers with the same enthusiasm as my students proclaimed during their creation.

In the end, they were rewarded for their effort or destroyed for their incompetency; some caught by the highly feared Turnitin.com anti-plagiarism software. The papers themselves merely contributed to our overly bloated landfills.

Hence, my excitement over this new approach to constructing a scientific document. Rather than researching for a paper that is destined to the circular bin, let us contribute to the world-wide data base for others to benefit.

News and Progress

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A summary of how far we have come over the semester:

  • Just started (8/26/08)
  • Create Accounts (completed 8/29/08)
  • Create User Page with a bio, images, and a selection of user boxes (completed 9/5/08)
  • Selection of topic (biology theme). All topics must be approved by the instructor. (Completed 9/19/08)
  • Generate List of potential references. Post on the articles talk page with appropriate links. (Completed 9/26/08)
  • Insert one citation into an article using an acceptable template. Any article! (Completed 10/5/08)
  • Actively edit the article - with emphasis on improving citation skills and reference selection. (On-going)
  • Submit article for peer review (Due 11/18/08)
  • Deadline for submission of articles for FA or GA consideration. May,1,2009(In regards to class credit.) This leaves six weeks after the nomination for your entry to be reviewed - issues addressed - then accepted or rejected. Unless you are committed to the process, do not attempt either FA or GA. Articles that do not meet FA or GA standards will be graded by me based on your contributions and my own criteria.

Templates

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Please place this template on any article that is being worked on as part of this project. It will help the community identify the work carried out by AP Biology 2008. Simply copy and paste into the article's talk page somewhere near the top.

Place this template on the talk page of articles that are granted the FA star.

Articles and groups

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  Featured Article Candidates

  Good articles

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Good article nominations

  B-class articles

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Planning and resources

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Some information on planning and resources for the AP Biology 2008 Project.

Stages

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  • Start. Get familiar with Wikipedia. Make some trial edits, however minor. Demystify the process. Leave behind any sense of intimidation. As Wikipedia puts it, learn to be bold. Learn basic editing skllls.
  • Plan. But minor edits alone won't get us much closer towards Feature Article status. We need to have a sense of what more needs to be done, and an overall plan for the article. Look at models and guidelines (e.g. guidelines for articles about novels) on how to write good and feature articles. What sections are required? What will be the article structure? What information is needed?
  • Share. We will need to divide up the tasks that we've identified in the planning stage. Who is going to do what and when?
  • Research. This is vital. A Wikipedia article is worth nothing unless it comprises verified research, appropriately referenced. This will entail going to the library, as well as surfing the internet!
  • Assemble and copy-edit. As the referenced research is added to an article, we need to ensure that it does not become baggy and disorganized, though there will be moments when it is obviously in a transitional stage.
  • Informal Review. First, informal reviews among ourselves and consultation with members of the FA-Team.
  • Further Informal Review.

There's no precise order for everything. There's always the need for small, incremental change. But over the course of the project we're looking for radical change, in some cases seeking to create a feature article from scratch. So we need also to be methodical.

And it may turn out that not all articles will be submitted to Feature Article Review. But this should still be our goal!

NB see also what Wikipedia has to say about article development.

Talk pages

Whenever you edit, make sure that you are signed in. Also, add four tildes ~~~~ to the end of all comments you make on talk pages. This will let people know who is talking.

Style guides

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To get past the stumbling blocks of GA and FA, articles will have to conform to the Wikipedia style guides. The three largest barriers are:

Secondary style guide are specific to different projects. Articles must conform to these also. Conflict between any of these is inevitable and troublesome; editors simply have to work out conflicts through consensus.

You can always ask for help at:

Resources

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Members

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Mentors

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My deepest appreciation to those who are willing to offer the students assistance on this AP Biology project. It is my intent for the students to be responsible for the lion's share of the content as well as the necessary citations. Formatting, writing style, general organization, and grammar are the areas in which guidance would be greatly appreciated. It's a fine line between assistance and enablement!! I personally like the idea creating a list of concerns and allowing the students to address the problems. Admittedly I am shooting from the hip here --- but I'm confident a balance can be achieved that assures this is a learning process for the students and that they will feel a sense of accomplishment when the project ends.
I trust that the students will conduct themselves in an appropriate manner and at no time will their behavior be problematic. They do understand that their actions reflect on the class and school and they are being held accountable. Should any concerns arise, please contact me through the email option. I am very excited about the prospect of my students working with the brilliant and dedicated members of the Wikipedia community. This is an incredible learning opportunity for which I am most grateful. Please note, some of them are rather nervous and have considerable self-doubt. In time, they will overcome ... just a little patience! If you have adopted one of my lost souls; I will add your user name next to theirs on this page along with the topic. Cheers! --JimmyButler (talk) 23:47, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

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Show at own risk.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I've decided to hijack this section for my own personal area of self-reflection.

My father once said that every one has a right to carry around their own personal bucket of fecal matter (teachers are limited on the word choices here). We have a right to crawl into the bucket and splash around, sling waste on the walls, or dive head first into it. The only rules are: Do not drown yourself while in the bucket, do not sling your fecal matter on others who may be nearby, only fools climb in the bucket with you, and most importantly - when crawling out leave all its contents in the bucket. Maybe this section will be my bucket.

  • On picking user names: My goal was for them to seek out names that reflected creativity and originality. Something clever perhaps. However, having reviewed the class list -- apparently I'm not clever enough to figure out their meanings. I've asked them "why this name or that". The primary response is "All the good ones were taken". So here are three good choices. [Thatonestaken] [Nonamesleft] or [Goodnamesareallgone]. Apparently the very definition of originality was lost in translation. Perhaps they looked at my name "JimmyButler" and used it as a standard. In the future I may give them a list of names; BIO1, BIO2, BIO3.
There is also the problem of sorting out their user names from wikipedia and their real names in class. I look at them and instead of thinking Alexis - my brain comes up with Yomomma.--JimmyButler (talk) 16:51, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • On creating userpages: The plan was to have the students develop the user page as a way of breaking the ice on Wikipedia. Their first edits in a place with the least risk of damage. A little confidence building and understanding of html codes, or how to use the tool bar ... that sorta thing. What they learned was how to plagiarize using the copy/paste tool. I couldn't help but notice that nearly every page is identical, each a copy/paste job from a friend's page who copy/pasted a friends. Most didn't bother to change the links --- still linking to the original user's talk page. To their credit, the first one to copy the user page picked a really good one.
With time, the pages are morphing into something of individual expression, especially in the selection of userboxes. Which in way of defense, was intended to add a bit of fun to the project - a way of personal expression. The userbox is a window to their soul .... ok ... that's a little over the top - but at least I know who they are voting for. --JimmyButler (talk) 19:32, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Free advise to self. Generate a topic list. The idea that they would be like kids in the candy store didn't pan out. It was more like showing them a huge display of assorted guns and asking them which one they wanted to be shot in the head with. Clearly, the majority of them would have spent months before committing if I had not moved forward on the dead-line. I still suspect there will be a few who will jump around from topic to topic before this is over. At the very least generate a thematic list; such as birds of North America or genital parasites. I was hoping they would adopt an article that they were passionate about. Brain Farts ... what does that tell you?
A few bright spots. One student adopted an article on barrier island horses who is passionate about the beast. Another is now an expert on a medical disorder of which they personally suffer. If nothing else, I will broaden my horizons as I monitor their progress.--JimmyButler (talk) 06:24, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • On separating Fact from Fiction - the 40 references. "If it is print - it must be true"; especially if it is on the internet. After this exercise, all of them have walked away with a deeper appreciation of what constitutes a good references. Blogs - bad. Professional Journals - Good. I've come to the conclusion that the Google Page Ranking system determines "truth" in America The willingness to list what to me were obvious "fringe" references came as no surprise. Consider my colleagues... highly educated people from whom I receive a steady stream of forwarded "truths" - especially on political issues. Did you know Obama is a homosexual, Iranian terrorist who sat out the Vietnam War in Canada, smoking dope and listening to Jimi Hendrix. - It is true - I read it on the internet. Hopefully, my students have a greater understanding of the powers and perils of the internet. --JimmyButler (talk) 15:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • On Bill Gates and his Copy/Paste contribution to the World : Over the last 25 years I have graded hundreds of student “research papers”; a task that eats up enormous amounts of my personal time. All too often, it is readily apparent that the papers are merely the product of MS Word – Copy/Paste – Internet. My personal favorites are the ones that are clones of Wikipedia articles, with minor edits, such as “enormous” to “big”, in an effort to fly under the radar of “Turitin.com”. The term, “I worked hard on this project” translates to “I was up all night, copying and pasting off the internet”. For obvious reasons; this project changed all of that. For one, it’s difficult to copy/paste Wikipedia into your research – if Wikipedia is your research (although in one case – the student was using a mirror site of their Wikipedia article as a source of information – caught in a bizarre loop of information editing!). In the end - at least for Semester 1 – did we benefit from this project? I’m deep in the aforementioned bucket at the moment – nearly drowning in the excrement – so it may be best that I crawl out and reflect on this at a later time? Call it procrastination, a word that has taken on a whole new meaning in my tiny little niche in the world of academia.--JimmyButler (talk) 13:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Last Dip in the Bucket:

It has been awhile since I've splashed in my bucket. One of the perks of working two full time jobs - not much time for self pity. Also, not much time for closure on a project that has been the most inspirational and frustrating undertaking of my teaching career. Frustrating in that so many students saw it as an obstacle, an intrusion into their personal space. Those that log their 90 min of class time, then not another thought of the course until the next day, did not fair well. Rewarding, in that those that rose up - did so in a glorious fashion.

The class started with 28 students, with 14 dropping the first semester; in part, because they were not up to the Wikipedia challenge. Such attrition rates could lead to insufficient enrollment and a loss of the course from the school's curriculum. Research papers alone serve as a deterrent to many; a paper which can not be copy/pasted from the internet served as an even more intimidating barrier. In the end - natural selection played its role - the weak were eliminated while the strong were rewarded.

The academic gains and understanding of real research were priceless. The importance of collaboration and the skills to navigate through the myriad of personalities provided insight into the reality of the work place. The satisfaction of completing a project with real-world value, trumped the traditional attitude of "its all about the grade".

Will I do it again? Likely not. This project is far more suited to a new teacher; one that can commit the time and still possesses the energy and enthusiasm to lead the charge. I fell short on the task. Close monitoring and collaboration by the teacher could / would have made this project spectacular. If not for the community support - we would have gone down in flames. A better organized and structured approach at this end - to monitor student efforts and provide greater guidance and encouragement - was needed. I often found myself shooting from the hip. Hopefully, I can inspire our English department to take up the torch. A phenomenal husband / wife team not yet beat up and burned out from 26 years of teaching and now an additional seven hours a day teaching Drivers Ed. Their high energy input combined with the amazing support of the Wikipedia community would take this to a whole new level. As for me - the torch is starting to sputter. --JimmyButler (talk) 14:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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