Hi everyone,
I just posted the following essay about attitudes towards Wikipedia on
my blog (http://www.andycarvin.com). As you'll see below, I'm eager to
hear reactions from educators and librarians on the subject. -andy
Are Educators Hostile to Wikipedia?
http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2005/09/are_educators_h.html
Last July, I posted a blog entry about strategies teachers could use to
incorporate Wikipedia into classroom practice. The post received a lot
of commentary in the blogosphere, some positive, some negative, but all
quite interesting.
I then received an email from Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia, who
noted one particular sentence I used in my essay, which I quote here:
"On Wikipedia in particular, we talked about the hostility that
many educators have towards the website, particularly their concerns
that it can't be considered a reliable source."
Jimbo took issue with my use of the word "hostility" when describing how
many educators felt about Wikipedia. In his experience, Jimbo felt that
the majority of educators had quite the opposite feeling, being
supportive of Wikipedia.
I found this surprising. From a purely anecdotal perspective,
particularly among k-12 librarians, I'd heard a lot of complaints about
Wikipedia being unreliable and inappropriate for students. At
conferences I'd felt sometimes I was the only person in the room
supportive of Wikipedia as a teaching tool. Perhaps one of us was just
hearing from a vocal minority. Or perhaps one of us just had it wrong.
Jimbo and I then went through the archive of my WWWEDU list to see if we
could find any instances of educators painting Wikipedia in a negative
light, and at that particular time, we couldn't. So it was basically
Jimbo's gut feeling versus my gut feeling, with no quotes to back it up
decisively one way or another.
So I suggested to Jimbo that we make our conversation public and see
what educators actually have to say about Wikipedia. For example, is
Wikipedia something you'd want your students using in the classroom? Do
you consider it an appropriate teaching tool? If so, how? If not, why not?
If you're a teacher and a blogger, we'd like to encourage you to respond
by posting something on your blog. If you do, please tag the post with
the Technorati tag "wikipedia in the classroom"
(http://technorati.com/tag/wikipedia%20in%20the%20classroom) so it's
easier for all of us to follow the discussion, no matter where the blog
entries are being posted. If you're not a blogger, email me your
comments and I'll compile them for posting on my blog.
Personally, I hope Jimbo's right, since I see lots of potential uses for
Wikipedia in the classroom. It's just that my gut is still telling me
something else. Either way, we'd love to hear your thoughts on the
matter. -andy
--
-----------------------------------
Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldivide.net
http://katrina05.blogspot.com
Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com
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