On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 20:50, valerie <[email protected]> wrote: > As an assignment in a community college course, my students are asked > to find a learning resource in WikiEducator. Finding good learning > objects in WE can be difficult, so I have included this assignment to > have students find what they thought was complete and interesting. > Although there is usually some frustration, they find some amazing WE > pages. I'm accumulating a list of pages they discover. > > However, sometimes I get more information and feedback than I > bargained for... I though this was an interesting comment from one of > my students. > "Also, the color scheme and design of the website is exactly the same > as Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia is known for false information, and cannot > be used for research papers. I feel that this site is similar to > Wikipedia; therefore, this site's information cannot be trusted."
A very common and elementary fallacy. Assuming A and B have property X. A has property Y. we are given the incorrect conclusion Therefore B has property Y. Easily shown to be nonsense using a Venn diagram, which unfortunately I cannot include in a text message. X and Y should be overlapping regions, with neither included in the other. Then A is in X and Y, while B is in X but not in Y. > Sigh... Yes, some of our faculty are convinced that Wikipedia and by > association, all wikis, especially those that look like Wikipedia > because they use Mediawiki are evil and populated by gangs of internet > hooligans intent on provide false information to unsuspecting web > users. They explicitly forbid the use of Wikipedia. > > Has anyone else heard of similar credibility issues for WikiEducator > content? It is true that Wikipedia should never be cited as a primary source for research. The same is generally true of other Wikis. The correct attitude is not to ban use of Wikis, but to require that students find the original sources for the information in the Wiki, and to study and cite those sources. You should not take the word of any participant here for fact, but should yourself look at the research papers, software, learning materials, and methods recommended and evaluate them accordingly. Wikis are neither more nor less reliable than other published encyclopedias, newspapers, TV, or other secondary and tertiary sources. Of course, many primary sources, such as research articles using improper methodolgy and drawing unwarranted conclusions, are also utterly unreliable. There is no magic in correct scientific method, only careful work. > Is this something that is limiting adoption of WE learning > objects? No. > ..Valerie > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "WikiEducator" group. > To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org > To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > -- Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination. http://www.earthtreasury.org/
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