I responded to Tom offlist absolutely supporting what he said, but since reading
Cathy's reply I
have to jump in.
Whether we use/accept Wikipedia, encyclopaedias, "bad" research sites or whatever,
if we use the
information from them then the source must be cited. Citing is about acknowledging
the moral rights
of the author (and all authors of whatever calibre are automatically attributed
these) and also
teaches students about copyright and plagiarism. If they are required to cite ALL
their sources so
these can be found for the reader's future information, then they are less likely
to copy great
swathes of it from a source they know they don't have to cite. It's an ethics
issue.
I know there are certain domains such as .gov. or .edu that appear to have more
authority than
others, but not everyone can qualify to have one of these, yet they can be experts
in their field.
To determine that any site hosted publicly by Geocities, Google, Yahoo or whatever
as being a "bad
research site" is almost slanderous. I have a friend, a top expert in his field,
whose site is
hosted via Geocities because he is self-employed not a company bumpkin, and I'd
back the information
on his pages over anyone. Why should his choice of webhost prejudice the
information and ideas
available through his pages? Just because I purchased a domain name (at
considerable expense) does
not automatically mean my material is more authoritative than his or anyone else's.
Similarly, with print materials. Why are these held up as being "gospel"? I have
just written
three books, and believe me, my editor and publisher are not going through them to
check the
accuracy, currency and reliability of the information. They have trusted me to be
correct and their
job is to edit the semantics and syntax not the information itself. Yet I could
have written some
quite erroneous stuff and supported this with off-the-wall opinions (I haven't)
and because it is
published in print format it is accepted as accurate and authoritative. I am
reworking one part, not
because it was inaccurate, but because the new version will have a wider appeal and
therefore boost
sales! Like the choice of webhost, the format of the delivery should not be an
indicator of the
quality of the work.
As I write, the local morning show has its out-there Hollywood gossip columnist
spruiking his latest
observations, yet because of his profession, people would dismiss him as a "good
source" despite
many of his reports being reliable, current and accurate.
Personally, I don't think there is a definitive answer to yes-Wikipedia,
no-Wikipedia. In fact, I
think it is irrelevant. Our brains are the best filter - when we learn something
new, it shuffles
down until it finds something that it can match with and supports the existing
dendrites. A new
dendrite is then created. If there is no match and it is important, we seek further
external
clarification and information, If it's not we discard it. What we should be
teaching our students
is the process about how to find out more when we need to know, and following that
trail until we
have something that sits comfortably with what we already know, do, understand and
value, or have an
aha! moment that radically alters our thinking..
Barbara
Barbara Braxton
Teacher Librarian
COOMA NSW 2630
AUSTRALIA
E. barbara.288@bigpond.com
Together we learn from each other
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