Have librarians and teachers stopped blocking or steering students away from www.wikipedia.com? For at least two years the cite has required citations for entries and may remove an uncited entry after a certain amount of time. Monitors watch the activity around the clock.
Founder Jimmy Wales' concept was to invite contributions, not block them. Remember how the old Geocities community was resoundingly criticized for the fact that just anyone could occupy an address there and use it for most any purpose? Geocities was resoundingly criticized by my district's tech people when I opened "Books That Changed Your World" on Geocities, posted student-written book reviews, projects, writing, and other features. I heard from people around the world who had found it helpful, and the site was listed on some reading association's list of places to visit. At the time my district had no alternative to offer, and I shrugged off the criticism. (But I remember it fifteen years later.)
To me, Wikipedia is similar to Geocities in that it is the solid ground floor that supports the structure. Today, Geocities has long been subsumed by Yahoo, everybody has a social network page, and wikis are layered in everywhere. It has taken time for the interactivity to evolve, but the impulse to connect with, teach, learn from, and conduct commerce with others online has always been present. As long as humans are involved, their ventures will be flawed, but that is not reason enough to write off the ventures entirely. Long live Wikipedia!
3 comments:
Do you have children?
Do you hope that they use Wikipedia at school to learn about "hogtie bondage"? Go ahead, look it up. Now answer.
Judy,
One of the beautiful things about blogging is that it is authentic and allows people of varying ideas to share them with you, as Gregory did here!
I also have children, and when researching topics, they have used Wikipedia as a starting point, then verified the information found there with other sources.
One could just as easily type "hogtie bondage" into any search engine on the Web, and find offensive material. Should search engines also be banned? My hope is that we as educators teach children to use technology responsibly.
Ah, Gregory, you're trying to trick me into visiting porno. Not gonna go there. I'm too busy with 23 Things on a Stick.
See, up until now my site was a nice, clean site, appropriate for any age group, including the 11-year-olds, until you sullied it with your low thoughts.
I know you are not really seeking a thoughtful response, but my children grew up with Internet in schools, and today one of them is privileged to fill the airwaves the old-fashioned way, on the radio. I raised her to know that the airwaves are a public space a privileged few have access to and that she must always use them for public good.
I take that attitude with me every day into the classroom where now the world is the destination for anyone who steps onto the virtual highway. It is as much a mark of good parenting and teaching today as it was 20 years ago to teach kids personal responsibility. I'd encourage you to do the same rather than fruitlessly burn energy trying to block everything from them.
By all means, read Mike Walker's comment.
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