Wikipedia’s are a great innovation that allows people to collaborate and gather useful information, but there are positive and negatives to using them. It’s important you know how to utilize them properly. I’ve always been wary about how to use Wikipedia’s properly since they are a wealth of knowledge, yet being user-editable means they risk being wildly inaccurate.
However, with proper direction and management Wiki’s can be invaluable to an educational curriculum. I’ve had a chance to read, not only opinions of implementing wikipedia’s in the classroom, but some actually Wikipedia pages created for educational purposes. Being able to document and collaborate on projects help students learn skills such as team work, online etiquette and online collaboration which is necessary for their future success. Educators need to learn to utilize and direct those Wikipedia postings so that they are successfully meeting their goals.
During my educational career I have been very careful about using wikipeida in my research. I find that they can be a great starting point and usually site their sources for me to do my own research. I’ve always believed in the idea that if I were to give an assignment I would allow Wikipedia as a research point, but not as the only source.
After reading a number of articles I’ve had a number of ideas of how to utilize wiki’s that I had not thought of before. I’m excited about how I can possibly utilize these ideas to create a winning curriculum in my own classroom.
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Would you keep the wiki internal to the school, or are you proposing to let the students loose on wikipedia itself? because they are two entirely different propositions.
ReplyDeleteWell, they are the same technology. When i suggest allowing students to use wiki's for collaboration i would suggest they stay within the confines of the classroom. Not meaning they are strictly internal, thought they could be. But rather set up in a way to safely monitor and administer them. For research purposes i see no problem with allow them to use Wikipedia itself. It's a useful starting point for finding information.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Wikipedia can be a great starting point but should never be used as the only source. I believe that if students rely on more than one source, the reliability of Wikipedia or any other single source will be irrelevant, however if they rely on just one source, they will be open to innacuracies whether it is Wikipedia or some other encyclopedia. I have to say that I often use Wikipedia and I often get a quick viewpoint to consider, but I also often proceed to check the path to the references at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that Wikipedia is a great starting point for research, I've seen it overused by students and they are getting more and more savvy about hiding it. I was completely floored to see my younger brother (freshman in college at the time) struggle to write a research paper on Jimi Hendrix without exclusively using wikipedia as his sources. He really didn't even know how to find other reputable sources from his school library, and he basically "faked the teacher out" by taking the references from the wikipedia page and pretended that he had actually read those articles and included them in his works cited.
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher, I couldn't believe that he had graduated high school without learning how to find other reputable sources, but when I thought about it more, I was also not completely shocked because lifting "sources" from wikipedia was so much easier than doing the hard work himself. My brother is a very smart kid and completely capable of doing the research, but he is lazy, and I doubt he's the only one who has ever done it!
One recommendation I would give, when doing research with students, would be to have them print out the articles they claim to be using for their sources, or bring in the books. Although it may seem a little overboard, it forces them to actually have the article in front of them, rather than relying on the pre-digested wikipedia page.
I love wikipedia when I need to understand something quickly. I see it as the "cliffs notes" for almost anything you'd want to know. But if we want kids to learn real research skills, we need to push them beyond wikipedia!
I love how Wikipedia stirs conversation amongst educators. Although I completely understand the frustration of seeing a lazy student abuse Cliff Notes, an encyclopedia, or Wikipedia, I think the problem was created by the originality of the teacher. I'll admit, I don't know what the assignment was, but anything that can be completed via Wikipedia doesn't qualify as a great assignment in my book.
ReplyDeleteThe "lazy student" problem isn't a new one. I think the opportunities that Wikipedia provides to check sources and evaluate bias outweighs it shortcomings. The source lists at the bottom are often quite spectacular, too.
I agree with not letting Wikipedia be a resource. Wikipedia can be changed by anyone and all the information is not always correct. Using wikis is a get way to collaborate with a group of people.
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