The article on Wikipedia was an eye opener as to what Wikipedia actually is. I always used Wikipedia in high school and in college and often times still do use it to look things up. I was not taught in depth about Wikipedia but just told “don’t use Wikipedia.” In college, I remember finding out that anyone was able to post information about a topic on this website. I was surprised and therefore, since then, never thought of Wikipedia as being a reliable source.
After reading this article, I realized that although Wikipedia is open to the public, it can be a friend to a teacher. Many teachers shy away from it and do not give it a chance, however teachers need to use it as a teaching tool. ln my years of teaching, my boss is always telling us that teaching the “non example” is often a better example for the students to grasp an idea that you are teaching. This fits with Wikipedia; teachers, if well prepared, can take Wikipedia in many directions which will not only have the children engaged, but also have them learning something from it. Students can look into what is wrong with Wikipedia and find irrelevant or bias information. They will enjoy finding the flaws and as a result they will remember as they discovered it themselves. They can also read about a topic on Wikipedia and ask themselves questions about that topic or think about what further information they want to find out about that topic; this creates a higher level thinking. This steers them in the right direction and encourages them to find reliable sources so they can get to the deep meaning and find the answers to their questions. Wikipedia also provides sources of where the information was found. Students can click on those links and evaluate that site; if it is a good site, they can use that for their papers. If I was taught this way in high school, as opposed to just saying, “don’t use wikipedia,” I would have had a better understanding of what a proper website to use was and why Wikipedia was not reliable. As one can see, Wikipedia is a teaching tool and when used correctly can be beneficial to students learning on the computer.
Michelle, I love what you said about using Wikipedia to teach unreliable sources. Students learn from mistakes often times better than the real thing. Providing a "guided discovery" of Wikipedia could be a great way to introduce the concept of evaluating research sources. You mentioned how your dislike of the way your high school dealt with the website, so how would you change the way you introduce and use Wikipedia in your own classroom?
ReplyDeleteI teach first grade currently, so it is not something I would introduce right away. In first grade, I may introduce them to Wikipedia by printing out or reading them a blurb about something maybe a dinosaur they were learning about. When we read it we can talk about the information provided on that website. They may be learning different information and I think that would be a good way to tie it in. We teach that not everyone is 100% about dinosaurs so at this point it would be a good way to bring Wikipedia in because as a parallel, Wikipedia does not always have all of their information correct. We could discuss the differences on what they have on that website to what we learned in class. This may be a good way to introduce that not everything on the internet is accurate. In the older grades, however, I think it would be best if teachers took it to the next level and introduced it as a non example. There are many ways a teacher in the upper grades can take it to the next level by looking at what is wrong with it, how it is wrong, and how to use it to find accurate reliable information.
ReplyDeleteI love your adaptation for the little ones. This is a tough concept, but the more we can set the stage at a young age the more prepared they will be in later grades. :-)
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