I make no secret of the fact that I love Wikipedia both personally and professionally. I use it a lot for myself when I am looking for quick information on something. I also send the kids in my class to Wikipedia. The caution I give them is that Wikipedia should be a first source of information to get a solid overview on something and not a last resort.
I know there is (still….) a great debate among many teachers about the worth of it, but I need to tell you, in the rest of society, the debate is over. Wikipedia proves its worth to tens of thousands of people every single day. As with any web based resource, we need to teach our students to be wise consumers and producers of information, but the value and power of this resource cannot be denied.
I think that in education, we are often concerned with providing our students with information that has stood the test of time. We want our students to only have access to the best information; anything less, anything that is questionable or possibly malleable, is frowned upon.
Is this right?
When we live in a society that is changing so quickly, I believe that information that is good enough for here, for now, for our purposes is completely valid.
Besides, as Jimmy Wales stated on twitter this AM, your perspective on wikipedia may all depend on the field that you work in:
Here here Clarence. I couldn’t agree more. I love Wikipedia as a resource and as an idea. I think teachers are so used to the idea of anexisting “truth” and “facts” that they cannot get their heads around the idea of a constructed, shared and changing notion of truth.
Forget bringing teachers on board, we need to be teaching our students what it means to analyze and synthesize ideas.