http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1830262
So should students be allowed to use Wikipedia as a source in research papers? Personally I always check out the bibliography on wiki pages as a source for additional resources but tell my students never to quote a wiki. Should this still be our stand? Currently I am taking a free collaborative learning class via Wikieducator and find that alot of educators are turning to wikis as viable sources. The controversy remains...
What makes a reputable source? Growing up, I was taught to only use Internet sources if they were from a scholarly journal or if they had an author (this was the late 90s). How does having an author make it any more reputable? Joe Schmo could sign his name to an article about quantum mechanics, but that doesn't mean it's true. It also doesn't make it false. How do we determine that? I'm pretty sure it's not through wikipedia and eliminating all authorship, but how do we really help our students determine what's true and what's not in an age where all information (and misinformation) is a click away?
ReplyDeleteI believe that reputable resources are not being taught enough in my school. Wikipedia is easily accessible and popular. We all know that it is not the greatest of sources. Students today are used to having everything instantly with technology. I believe that teachers are not teaching them the importance of reputable sources and it gets lost in the fast paced world of today.
ReplyDeleteI used to be very skeptical about the use of Wikipedia as a source, but I have come around to be pretty pro-Wikipedia over the past year or so. I read an article recently stating that the incidence of error on Wikipedia is nearly identical to that of Britannica! While I'm not fully on board for using Wikipedia as a stand-alone source, I think that its a great place to start research if nothing else. Secondly, because their citations are linked so well to the statements in the articles, it can be very easy to verify most of the information found on the site.
ReplyDeleteI think the positives outweigh the negatives very heavily, and it shouldn't be so quickly dismissed as unreliable.
Great video, by the way... very entertaining.
I tell my students that Wikipedia can be a quick source (with important names/dates) that can lead them to better, more reliable sources. I let them use it as a stepping stone, but they do not take quotes from it or cite it as a source.
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