From Ars Technica:
Earlier this month, Pennsylvania's Express-Times reported on a local school librarian who put up her own "Just Say No to Wikipedia" signs in the computer lab. The entire Warren Hills Regional School District has also blocked access from all school computers. The basic problem, according to officials, is that Wikipedia's unverified accuracy and ease of use are making it too tempting for students to use as a primary source.
Wow! Sounds like a teaching failure, not a Wikipedia problem.
teaching failure
Yeah, teaching failure. I don't know that it's all that hard to make it clear that wikipedia is a good starting point, but that's it. Or a good project, maybe to have students research and verify the material found on the site. There are plenty of ways to use it for the benefit of all. If you can conduct research to verify the material, I think people will start to see that it's pretty solid for the most part, despite occasional "truthiness" problems.
bradley || bleckblog.org
wikipedia=negative source
Yeah. Great for initial research. Bad for ethos. I tell my students that Wikipedia is a negative source in terms of their paper's credibility, that they would often be better to write without it than with it. The exception would be when a writer has many other sources, wikipedia provides the best way of stating something, *and* the writer has verified that what they are using from Wikipedia is accurate.
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Charlie | cyberdash
Teaching Failure. Wikipedia
Teaching Failure.
Wikipedia is awesome. It seems obvious that it shouldn't be used as the only source, but I'd allow it as, say, one of five sources.
Wikipedia is useful just as a model for collaboration. I will use wikimedia-powered wikis in my classes for sure. Have you ever read an article's "discuss" tab?