kelsey hudson wrote:
Lan Barnes wrote:
Sorry I can't help, but I'm curious as to why you say "I might understand
why they would block wikipedia." Subversive content? Plagarism control?
Surely having the EB or the World Book in the library is OK, why not
wikipedia?
The beauty of wikipedia is that anyone can edit it.
The downfall of wikipedia is that anyone can edit it.
Refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_in_popular_culture and
pay special attention to the entries referencing the Colbert Report.
It's great because any expert on a subject can chime in and change a
page to reflect correct information. But at the same time, Joe Q. Idiot
can come along and change a page to something that might not be correct.
So, the information isn't guaranteed to be correct because there's no
quality control (except by community review, but again, refer to Joe Q.
Idiot). In an educational institution, this is completely unacceptable.
In order for something to be accurate enough and acceptable for
acadaemia, it needs to be reviewed by peers (other experts) and put
through rigorous scrutiny to make sure the information is correct as
possible. Wikipedia can't offer those strict controls; thus in the
interest of educating kids properly, wikipedia isn't usually accepted as
an academic source for schoolwork.
I've seen no credible empirical evidence that Wikipedia is any less
authoritative on any given random subject than its dead tree
counterparts (I'm not saying there is no evidence, I'm saying "Show me
some"). The public schools (hell, most any schools) have a long and
checkered history of giving kids bad information - much in the form of
textbooks. How does Wikipedia not fit into that scheme?
Of course dead tree books (more importantly, dead tree text books) tend
to be out of date, or incorrect, or missing vital data, or all of that
until/unless a new edition comes out correcting the error. But then what
are the odds that errata gets passed on to students already exposed to
the bad data? While Wikipedia tends to be self-healing.
I'm not in any way denouncing wikipedia -- I find it a wonderful
resource (and often a first searching point) if I'm looking for
information on something I may not already know about.
However, the reason SDUHSD blocks wikipedia is probably something more
along the lines of the fact that it has articles like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast (NSFW) which can be quite
distracting to young teenagers. Imagine the calls the school will get
from Mom...
-Kelsey
As a parent, I'd be more concerned that my child was getting
unsupervised access to such information. I'd also be concerned that my
child was not getting any educational opinions from the school on why
certain content and/or its viewing was inappropriate. Especially in the
lower (pre Jr. High) age groups.
Is some information harmful to some individuals or groups? if so, then
should formalized education include some discussion about why that's
true (or isn't)?
Oh well, such are the side-effects of living in one of the most
puritanical societies on the planet.
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
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