Hi... Well, I am a teacher and a post-grad student... (and admittedly, a bit of a tech-head too)... But, I use Wikipedia both as a resource for students as well as for my own research... I am very in favor of it, they have done a good job with it... and my understanding was that it was contributed to by numerous educators... much like the Gutenberg Project (Free eBook Library) was.... and the Internet Movie Database.... and have for over a decade.... I have always thought of it (and these others) as part of a public resource or Electronic Commons to be shared and experienced by all.... :) In fact, there was a news story recently on NPR (All Things Considered? Talk of the Nation?) in the last few weeks, that challenged the info in Wikipedia and it was evaluated by "experts" in each particular field... Wikipedia was considered by the "experts" a valuable resource... sure, there are gaps, but the info was solid, and certainly no worse than an encyclopedia you might have on your shelf... and more likely to be relevant and up to date.... :) You can probably get the news story transcript off the NPR.org Website, if you are interested... they cost about $4 each.... :) So, count me as a fan and long-time user...! and so is my partner...! ;) NE... Nicole English Interdisciplinary PhD Program, Sociology/Psychology Instructor, Program for Adult College Education (PACE) University of Missouri--Kansas City (UMKC) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Andy Carvin Sent: Tue 9/27/2005 2:44 PM To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group Subject: [DDN] seeking opinions: are educators hostile to wikipedia? 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 ----------------------------------- _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
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