Excellent response! Thank you, Nancy Willard!
Terri L. Street, School Librarian
Longfellow Middle School
Norman, Oklahoma
tstreet@norman.k12.ok.us
"Never judge a book by its movie." -- J. W. Eagen
On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 12:39 AM, Nancy Willard <nwillard@csriu.org> wrote:
> Paula Joseph-Johnson raised this question
>
> His question to me: Does the educational value of Wikipedia outweigh the
> potential pornography to which students *could* be exposed? With a
> background in journalism and definite opinions about First Amendment
> rights, I am conflicted at this point and would love input from others.
>
> The only time there was an actual assessment of the ability of filters to
> actually block porn - done by the Kaiser Family Foundation - they found a
> 10% failure rate when intentionally accessing porn. That did not take into
> account the ability of people to bypass the filter. Google: "bypass Internet
> filter." So ask yourself what is the degree to which students "could be
> exposed" to porn whenever they use the Internet. So I do not have any
> statistics, but I would lay odds there is less likelihood of students being
> exposed to porn on Wikipedia than just surfing the Internet. And although
> there was apparently porn in the Wikipedia Commons, this is different than
> Wikipedia - and with the exposure and pressure by funders of Wikipedia, this
> is being cleaned up.
>
> I have also heard about Wikipedia being blocked because of concerns of
> credibility - because of the user-generated content. Let's think about this.
> I found this interesting quote many years ago:
>
> "The effort to pull ideology out of schools is evident in battles over
> history textbooks. ... (M)ost students read carefully censored books. The
> pursuit of 'neutrality' often leads to censorship. The American Textbook
> Publishers Institute has counseled publishers 'to avoid statements that
> might prove offensive to economic, religious, racial or social groups or any
> civil, fraternal, patriotic, or philanthropic societies in the whole United
> States.' Textbook manufacturers appear to have responded in some cases by
> deleting materials reflecting cultural differences that might have offended
> someone. Interest group pressures from diverse ideological camps have
> resulted in the deletion of materials that would undercut the perception of
> an American monopoly on decency, as variously defined. Business interests
> have occasionally intervened in textbook selection to remove materials
> considered hostile to the "American system." American policy is sanitized.
> Books rarely report questionable government action. ... Perhaps the most
> striking feature of history textbooks is that they minimize the role of
> dissent in our history. Government decisions that appear decent or
> beneficial are often portrayed without any of the political controversy that
> created them." Gottlieb, In the Name of Patriotism: The Constitutionality of
> 'Bending' History in Public Secondary Schools. 62 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 497, 504
> (1987).
>
> This was before the Texas History Book Massacre.
>
> Let's consider the credibility of material posted on web sites owned by a
> company or organization. The only person who can post material on my web
> site is me. The only people who can post material on the
> MartinLutherKing.org web site is Stormfront. How do we help students
> understand that they will always need to think carefully about the
> credibility of material found ANYWHERE? Who is providing us with credible
> information about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?
>
> Wikipedia has user-generated content. This is very different than the kinds
> of sites where someone controls everything that is posted. But how different
> is this from what students are going to face just about anywhere they go in
> the Web 2.0 world?
>
> Bottom line: assessing the credibility of information presented has always
> been a challenge - will always be a challenge. It was a challenge before the
> Internet. But lots of people never paid attention to this - because of the
> presumption that textbooks are credible. The credibility of information
> posted on sites established by individuals, organizations, companies is only
> as good as their personal integrity and "agenda" - which can range
> significantly.
>
> Wikipedia presents a different kind of credibility challenge. Students are
> going to rely on Wikipedia for research when they are working on projects at
> home. They will rely on it at college. How the heck are you going to teach
> them how to assess the credibility of this information if you do not have
> access at school?
>
> Did you know that the first "copyright" law was a grant by the crown to
> publishers of exclusive rights to the books they published (not the writers)
> in exchange for the right of the crown to review and censor what got
> published?
>
> Nancy
>
>
> --
> Nancy Willard, M.S., J.D.
> Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
> http://csriu.org
> nwillard@csriu.org
>
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