I have to jump on your bandwagon! I have taught my students very
similarly. Like you, I often use WIKIpedia and I encourage them to use
it as a base. A good discussion of its strengths and weaknesses is
valuable--it teaches them how to think and also how to judge
resources--something they will have to do more and more as the internet
becomes the go-to place for information.
Team and Family,
Katrina Baecht | KIPP Austin Librarian
office: 512-501-3586 | fax: 501-3587
8509 FM 969, Bldg 676 | Austin, TX 78724
kbaecht@kippaustin.org
"Be the change you wish to see in the world."
-----Original Message-----
From: School Library Media & Network Communications
[mailto:LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Alicia Duell
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 9:18 AM
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Wikipedia
Good Morning All,
I have been reading this thread with great interest, and now I feel that
it's my turn to jump into the fray! As part of my Big6 research unit
with all freshman and juniors, I devote a portion of one class to a
discussion of Wikipedia. I always start off by asking them their
opinions of Wikipedia. A few students inevitably raise their hands and
grudgingly tell me that it's bad and unreliable. Their jaws always drop,
however, when I tell them that I really like it and think it's
incredibly useful! Some even cheer. I did NOT always feel this way,
however, but I thought about it a lot and I believe that it's a little
misleading to tell students that Wikipedia is a source with no worth or
credibility. I actually think that it's a goldmine of information to
kick off a research experience. I really and truly understand where
everyone is coming from, however, so I say this with all due respect to
my colleagues! I use Wikipedia in both my personal and professional life
a great deal. !
Whenever I'm faced with researching a topic with which I'm unfamiliar,
I'll often read the Wikipedia article for an overview of the topic,
which almost always provides me with a multitude of helpful information:
great keywords (names, places, subtopics, etc.); links to other
Wikipedia articles which provide me with further useful overviews and
keywords; footnotes and citations which point me to other books and
articles; external links (section at the very bottom of every Wikipedia
article) which actually take me to other websites that may be useful for
my research. I get all of this from Wikipedia, and I think that's a
great thing! Because I use and value Wikipedia personally, I feel that
it's dishonest of me to denigrate it to students. We always talk about
its weaknesses, however, and I feel that students leave our discussion
with an understanding of how and why it's useful, but also why it's not
an appropriate academic resource to cite (authority of authorship is
importa!
nt when using info from a source-- I do hear my colleagues who argue
that it's perhaps elitist to refuse to cite a "less worthy" source, but
when you use a Wikipedia article as a jumping off point, without taking
notes from it and populating your final project with facts from other,
cited, sources, I feel like it's appropriate not to cite Wikipedia).
Again, I feel that it's inauthentic to dismiss Wikipedia outright as a
useless resource, when I know it's not useless! Kids are going to use it
regardless of what we tell them (not necessarily for school projects,
but certainly in their own lives), and I think that it sidelines us
professionally, in the eyes of the kids, when they KNOW it's useful, but
we are telling them that it's not. Jump on board, I say, and teach them
to use it in the best way possible, while still protecting the academic
rigor and expectations of good research!
Respectfully,
Alicia Duell
Library Media Specialist
Riverside Brookfield High School
Riverside, IL 60546
duella@rbhs208.org
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