Scholarpedia

Dear Scholars Community,

I would like to introduce the beta launch of Scholarpedia, the newest feature to the Scholars Academy social network.

Scholarpedia will be an ongoing project to harness the collective institutional knowledge of all members of the Scholars Academy community.  Like its more famous older brother, Wikipedia, the idea is that anyone with useful information about a topic of interest can share that knowledge with everyone else by writing or adding to short articles that are compiled in encyclopedic form.

I am hoping that students, teachers and parents will contribute to this project by signing up for an account at http://scholarpedia.wikispaces.com and writing about what they know.  Please make your name part of your user account so I can keep track of who is participating – I can’t accept requests to join from users who aren’t easily identified.

If you have useful information about joining a club or sports team, applying to college, finding an internship, or filing community service paperwork, please share your experience in the appropriate entry.  You can even let future Scholars Academy students know what it’s like to be in a particular teacher’s class – just remember that the teacher will be able to see who you are and what you wrote!

As a sample, I have created an entry that describes the functionality of the Scholars Academy social network website (long overdue, I know).  You can find the entry at http://scholarpedia.wikispaces.com/webpage and feel free to use it as a model (or not).

Feel free to write an entire entry, or to just add a small piece of helpful information.  The idea is that over time, we will build a comprehensive library of knowledge that will serve as a guide to students and parents for years to come.  And since we are building it together as a community, it will encompass all of our collective knowledge and perspectives.

I encourage you to contribute to this project.  Students who make an effort will be able to show their peers how dedicated they are to the program when it comes time to run for Scholars Academy Club officers, and parents can take pride in the fact that they are helping others navigate the always-challenging transition to high school.  I will be writing and editing articles over the summer, so we have something substatial to share in the fall.

Thanks for playing, and don’t forget to sign up for an account at http://scholarpedia.wikispaces.com!

Best Regards,

Andy Weiss

PS: Also, I couldn’t help but post this article on plagiarism by a UF student: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1133169.html The consequences are serious!