Wikipedia: The good, the bad, the…useful?
Apr 27th, 2009 by Cathy Jo Nelson
kathyschrock@paulawhite Will never look at Wikipedia for any information, but thanks for the link!
cathyjo@kathyschrock who looks for information? My kids today at school said they look at the citations in Wikipedia for links. LOL
kathyschrock@cathyjo I think looking at the citations in Wikipedia (when authors deign to put them) is a great way to get to the real info!cathyjo@kathyschrock thought it was pretty creative for the kids to use that as a defense for looking at wikipedia today too.
This is true conversation I had today with a virtual friend, Kathy Schrock. I was chiming in on another conversation, but just to add debate to it. I hadn’t followed the entire conversation, but had to add since it came up today with my kids. It’s research paper time, and the last few days we have been trying to get the kids to stick with our databases for authoritative information–trying to steer them clear of the free world wide web. But I overheard a student defend using Wikipedia today as he was pointing out the many citations for an article he was looking at. Funny. Isn’t that what we teach? Should Wikipedia be used to triangulate information? This student pointed to several newspapers and journal articles for his topic that he collected by looking it up in Wikipedia. He did not use Wikipedia, just their sources. Of course other kids jumped on his bandwagon.
Later this evening after the conversation with Kathy, I got a direct message from another expert library voice, Sarah Kelly Johns, AASL President from 2007-2008:
skjohns Glad to hear about the fires…whew….and I teach my students to look at the sources on Wikipedia, too…and to fact check the articles.
www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/09/19/wiki_web_C.jpg
I have kids look at wikipedia articles before they begin searching. It’s a great place to get keywords and a general overview of their topic. Armed with some good keywords they are more likely to get good search results.
I fully support the use of wikipedia. Somebody, probably in the media, has poisoned people’s minds about the horrors of anybody editing this wonderful site. The good people at the wikimedia family have incredible fact checkers that do that sort of thing. If an article isn’t cited properly, they’ll let you know. I read those articles with a careful eye, but the rest of them are great.
Nah probably a bunch of uninformed teachers and librarians. Don’t ya think? I know a few–surely you do too.
It is great for an overview. Sometimes it is the best place to get a quick overview of a large, cumbersome topic. And as you mentioned – if they know to verify & check sources, I think we really are OK recommending/allowing kids to use it!
After this recent hoax, I think I trust Wikipedia more (and the traditional news outlets less!).