Wikidebates:Educational Use and Purposes
About the Wikidebates project, the encyclopedia of “pro” and “con” arguments
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If you are a teacher and are interested in debates and critical opinion-related topics, you might consider having your students contribute to Wikidebates by structuring and summarising a debate.
Who is it for?
- Students aged 10 to 18
- University students or any adult higher learning program
What are the tasks?
A complete or partial elaboration of a Wikidebates entry, the broad content of which includes:
- An introduction;
- A comprehensive and structured summary of the “pro” and “con” arguments;
- For each of those, a short description and its dedicated page;
- For each of those, corresponding refutals or objections;
- For each argument or objection, one or more citation;
- Referenced sources such as a bibliography, websites or videography.
How can it be done?
- In classroom workshops
- As homework projects
- Part of school-sponsored internships/youth projects
What are the general goals?
- Discovering the principles of democratic exchange and debate culture;
- Learning critical thinking;
- Learning to tackle complicated issues in all their complexity;
- Learning to structure and summarise thoughts regarding a given problem;
- Learning to deal with conflicting opinions.
What are the skills developed?
- Learn how to research arguments amongst different sources and media;
- Learn to analyse a given problem and breaking it down into different arguments;
- Learn how to separate and organise pro and con positions, and their respective objections;
- Learn to write concise and structured introductions and descriptions for each argument;
- Learn to reference your sources;
- Learn to use game-changing collaborative digital tools such as Mediawiki, Twitter, Slack/Framateam, Google Docs/Framapad.
Some examples (in French)
- Should freedom of speech be limited? A page created during a cross-topical workshop including Literature and History by French middle school pupils aged 10-14, June 2017.
- Are vaccines dangerous? Scientific sources added to the debate by undergraduate Biology students, September 2017.
- Are professional Football players overpaid? Collection of arguments and objections written by French graduate students in Social Sciences, Evry University, November 2017.
- Should borders be abolished? A page created by high school students of Tremblay-en-France, April 2018.
Helpful links
- Using a wiki;
- Structure a debate;
- Write a page debate;
- Table of contents of “help” pages.
About us
The governing body includes teachers, writers, engineers, students, health professionals; all members of the French “Laboratoire du débat méthodique”.
How we can help
- Help you get familiar with Wikidebates’s tools and its method;
- Provide guiding and counselling for contributors.
Contact
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