Students and Wikipedia
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7130325.stm
Article: Students ’should use Wikipedia’
A while ago (2 years round about) I would have clearly said that students should not use wikipedia because we want facts not opinions. However, times they are a changing, and with them is my opinion of wikipedia.
While Jimmy Wales obviously has a vested interest in students using wikipedia “Jimmy Wales says students should be able to cite Wikipedia” He makes a valid point. As educators, we are not going to stop our students using this tool. We may stop them citing it in their assessments, which is too be honest more damaging than the students using it, but they are still going to use it.
What are our objections to wikipedia?
- accuracy and validity – well the article in Nature has limited this as an argument
- Its editable by anyone – well yes, but the articles, edits and entries are being reviewed quickly and efficiently
Jimmy Wales is quoted as saying this
“Since the controversy, in which it emerged that the “free editing” policy had allowed articles containing inaccuracies and bias to appear, the site has introduced a system of real-time peer review, in which volunteers check new and updated articles for accuracy and impartiality.”
So what should we do.
- We should teach our students to validate their information sources. Not to accept it as fact until its validated by a number of reputable information sources.
- We should accept that wikipedia is a useful and powerful source that is often more up to date than traditional sources by its very nature and design. But also accept the limitations inherent in its design that mean there is potential for abuse
- Encourage our students to move beyond just wikipedia and googling as a the only information source and look at other sources including:
- Journals
- Newspapers
- libraries
- Books, Textbooks
- encyclopedias
- Television and streamed media
- Blogs
- Primary information sources like interviewing experts
Lets not be blinded either way by wikipedia, but accept it warts and all, but teach our students what we must teach them, to VALIDATE their information sources.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:21 am
I agree with you 100% Andrew. I helped some of the library media specialists in our state department of education create a wikipedia page several weeks ago and navigate through the process which now exists to verify if something has been created by a spammer or other troll– it was very enlightening. I would extend your position to say students should not only use WikiPedia, they should also AUTHOR in it. Students can contribute to articles about their community and school, but also to articles about their interests. This can include games, books, and other topics. Students DO have expertise. Their expertise is often not precisely aligned with the curriculum, but I think the process of helping them become more aware of how WikiPedia works, how content there is validated, and how they can MAKE A CONTRIBUTION via their active participation in the creation of social media is very important.
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December 14th, 2007 at 5:42 am
[...] Andrew Church makes a good case for teachers permitting and even encouraging student to use WikiPedia during their research projects for school. I would extend his encouragement even further, and assert that teachers should encourage students to also AUTHOR WikiPedia articles. Teachers need to author and contribute to articles themselves as well. There are multiple reasons for this: [...]
December 14th, 2007 at 5:43 am
I find it strange that when new media are involved, all of a sudden we are concerned with things that do not concern us as much with media we are used to.
The notion that just because something appeared in print it has a level of quality or truth to it is, I think, just nonsense. And so the objection to Wikipedia being editable by anyone is no different from anyone being able to publish an article or a book. At least in Wikipedia the process is transparent, and there is less of an in-crowd deciding on what (or perhaps more importantly who) makes it into a publication.
The validation of information should always have been a critical skill in higher education. Technology, as always I think, only emphasizes existing challenges by its speed and scale.
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December 14th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
[...] » Students and Wikipedia [...]
December 15th, 2007 at 7:42 am
“accuracy and validity – well the article in Nature has limited this as an argument”
The whole “Nature” study was flawed: “Nature sent only misleading fragments of some Britannica articles to the reviewers, sent extracts of the children’s version and Britannica’s “book of the year” to others, and in one case, simply stitched together bits from different articles and inserted its own material, passing it off as a single Britannica entry.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/britannica_wikipedia_nature_study/
“Its editable by anyone – well yes, but the articles, edits and entries are being reviewed quickly and efficiently”
They are reviewed by people who search obvious vandalism. Introduce some factual inaccuracy that is not as easily recognizable, and it it very likely it will stay there for months, even years.
And if you haven’t yet read this,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/04/wikipedia_secret_mailing/
then you should.
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December 15th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Hi Infidel
Thanks for the detailed response. You write well and have taken the time to be through. I appreciate this.
I have read the two articles, both are good and have valid points. The second article about the mailing list is disappointing but I am yet to find any organisation not plagued with petty politics.
The first article is much more relevant and significant. It raises good and valid issues, and these do support my proposition here. Take wikipedia at face value. There is like everything, the chance of abuse, I suspect that the review cycle of any article published in any source, be it wikipedia, online encyclopedias and certainly in paper is a relatively long one given volume of information available know.
As an educator, I want my students to validate information from multiple sources, not rely on one or ignore one completely. The student who visits wikipedia and then encyclopedia brittanica and then another source and finds differences in the material, its depth and detail, or veracity is learning a substancial and hugely valuable lesson. If there are differences, good – from this they will learn. If the information is identical, this is good as well as they have had to compare multiple sources. This is a higher order thinking skill – evaluation, in Bloom’s Taxonomy is only one taxonomic level below creativity. Isn’t this what we want our students to do – engage, consider, analyse and evaluate?
History is written by the victor: Latin Proverb
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