On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 10:14 PM, doc <[email protected]> wrote: > The idea of wikipedia anywhere near a school curriculum, except perhaps > in a brief IT lesson, horrifies me. The idea of children using wikipedia > to challenge the "official truth" of a qualified teacher with "but sir, > it says on wikipedia", is laughable. > > I think that most of this discussion has missed the point that the > English Ofsted chap in no way suggested that Wikipedia should be used as > a teaching supplement at all, or that he had anything to do with > informing people about history or politics. Rather he seems to suggest > that certain internet skills "blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter" > should be taught in schools, and children should be familiar with how to > access their information. So, we no more get Wikipedia as a source of > knowledge than Twitter, and your local blog. > > The reaction "this shows the WMF should go into schools" is as > ridiculous a conclusion as it is a typical wikicentric "OMG they want > us, they really do - we always said they would".
As ever, I'm a little more optimistic than you, Scott. I think there is a potential use for members of the Wikipedia community to go into schools and explain how Wikipedia should be used because 1. children /will/ encounter Wikipedia; 2. they need to know how it can be helpful and how it can be harmful; and 3. teachers are unlikely to be able to impart this knowledge. > You want to train wikipedians in a primary school? Turn off the PCs and > give them grammar and dictation. And Latin. -- Sam PGP public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sam_Korn/public_key _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
