«Teaching Tiananmen: Using Wikipedia in the Undergraduate Classroom to Learn How to Write about Recent History» offre un bel exemple d’un projet éducatif qui ne vise pas à piéger les élèves, mais à les former à l’utilisation des médias sociaux en classe d’histoire. Un nouvel exemple, après les blogs et la dissertation, que nos exercices scolaires peuvent et doivent être revus avec tout bénéfice pour les apprentissages de nos élèves et étudiants.

Cet article est le compte-rendu d’un enseignement en histoire et d’une écriture par des étudiants d’articles sur Wikipédia à propos des événements de la place Tienanmen. L’article met également en évidence que rédiger un article pour Wikipedia est un processus complexe pour répondre à la ligne éditoriale de Wikipédia et la preuve du sérieux global de cette entreprise encyclopédique :

It is now possible to analyze the momentous events of 1989 in a historical fashion, and also to teach history classes about them. In fall 2010, 19 students in an undergraduate history seminar at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia embarked on a group writing project about the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Their original compositions were published at the end of the term as Wikipedia entries, and have already reached an audience of thousands. They are also archived online at the SFU Tiananmen Square Project.

It used to be controversial for university students to use Wikipedia as a reference. That is no longer the case. After 10 years, many Wikipedia articles on historical topics are more comprehensive and better referenced than their counterparts in other encyclopedias. While it used to seem innovative for university students to write original Wikipedia content for classroom assignments, the practice has become increasingly common. Students already use and edit Wikipedia all the time. The question, then, is how to use Wikipedia effectively in the history classroom. Our experience suggests that student contributions to Wikipedia are a particularly good match with a seminar focused on a recent, contentious topic like the Tiananmen protests.

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