After reading the latest thread on this topic, these are my thoughts.
Wikipedia isn't going to go away. If students can't use it at school, they
will at home, or the public library, or their friend's house. Would we rather
they use it someplace else where you cannot offer assistance or advice? Is there
some big difference between inaccurate information in a Wikipedia article and
a whole web site of inaccurate information?
If we tell students not to use it, or spend too much time warning against it,
that may backfire. "It must have the answers or they wouldn't be telling me
all the time not to use it."
I have talked to my students about wikipedia. I do tell them that the entries
can be edited minute by minute by most anyone. I do tell them not to fully
trust it. But I also tell them that it could be a certain kind of resource. For
topics such as the American Civil war, there are people who are passionate
about that topic. Those are the kind of people who would read the entry, make
changes, additions. Those people know their stuff, but even within that group are
different opinions reflected in the changes to the article.
Anyway, my 2 cents worth.
Deborah J Stafford
Gen. H.H. Arnold High School
dbrhstffrd@cs.com
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