RobertaMinhoto‘s piece on Casa Daphnis de Freitas Valle
Political Science professor, João Alexandre Peschanski believes in the use of Wikipedia as a didatic tool for his students. During 2016, he lead a project with 3rd year Journalism students to write and publish more than 200 articles on Wikipedia about São Paulo’s Historical Proprieties and their relevance to the city, in collaboration to DPH (Departamento do Patrimônio Histórico). Every student adopted a property and was in charge of research its history, relevance, architectural details, owners and other curiosities that might be interesting for a Wikipedia piece. Along with offering students the chance to work in Wikipedia and see its burocreacy and its large list of requirements, the Wikipedia project also helped the students to know more about how a research in official documents is held and how to address such papers.
Professor Peschanski listed as the three main goals for the project:
1) Stimulating students to enjoy working at Wikipedia and other Wikimedia platforms. Having a concrete experience of the platform, not only what was seen in classes with Yochai Benkler and Erik Olin Wright’s theories.
2) Developing a different and unconventional grading tool that diverges from standartized academic tests. Having their articles published on Wikipedia also gives the student’s work more visibility and impact, instead of just being read by a teacher and/or colleague.
3) Contribute with the material available in the area of culture of São Paulo. The proposal is justified in the sense of facilitating access to information that shows an impact to a citizen’s understanding of its evolution and history.
Besides writing the piece on their property, the students were demanded a series of pictures of their property to be uploaded on the Wikimedia Commons, in order to illustrate their piece. You can have access to the Project’s page here. And see more about the pictures taken here
Isadora Stelmach additions to the Casa das Caldeiras’ piece
Matheus Bianezzi additions in Hotel Excelsior
Georgea Andrade additions to Burle Marx Park