This wiki started in the Fall semester of 2013 by 5 sections of Sociology 101 and 1 section of Sociology 102, taught by Dr. Pattie Thomas.
What is "Sociology"?
Dictionary.com defines sociology as:
The science or study of the origin, development, organization, and functioning of human society; the science of the fundamental laws of social relations, institutions, etc.
Anything that involves two or more people is fair game for sociological attention. The basic unit of analysis in sociology is human interaction and the structural contexts to those interactions.
What is a "student legacy"?
"We are the ancestors of the future" is a concept espoused by many cultures as a way to remember that we create not only the world we live in today, but also the world that future human beings will inherit. What we say, do, think, feel, and create shapes our life on this planet. In fact, since humans are influential over ecological forces, we shape the lives of most living beings by our collective actions. It makes sense then to understand how we do this and how we can best do it. Specifically, education is often described as a teacher or instructor passing information to students or learners.
This does not really capture the full reality of this interaction. The teacher's experience within a given class at a specific time and place shapes how that teacher will teach the next class. The questions asked by students may become a regular part of future semester instruction. The disruptive behavior of a few may lead an instructor to be more strict or include specific warnings to future students.
Students, then, not only shape the interaction within their own course, but also influence future interactions between instructors and students. In addition, their own interactions with their instructors are within the context of previous classes in previous semesters. Thus, the classroom is a microcosm for the inherited reality of culture. We do not create a culture out of nothing, but rather inherit it and the reshape it with each subsequent generation.
This project is meant to demonstrate specific influences. The original pages created by the instructor were influenced by her previous students. The revisions and additions being made by students from all different sections will continue to grow the project. Students of the future will be able to see efforts from the past and have a concrete understanding the legacy they inherit and they shape.
What is a "wiki"?
A wiki is collaborative, interconnecting tool that allows for a collective of knowledge to be refined as the community continues to add and revise content.
A "plain English" tutorial about wikis: