Wikipedia

Congrats to all of you who have been busily posting. I am behind - again. But, I am making valid attempts to get caught up. So, we have to post 3 per week as well as reply to 3 per week?

Okay so on to my real blogging. The part about the credibility of Wikipedia really gave me a lot to think about. I know this came up in our first class we well. I found the experiment that Professor Halavais did very interesting. He picked various pages and created 13 errors. They were all fixed within hours (page 56 of our textbook). It also goes on to discuss the powerfulness of getting information on the web. One of the examples they use was the earthquake in the the Indian Ocean in 2004. Within a matter of nine hours. In light of the recent events in Haiti, I looked up information on Wikipedia. There is a tremendous amount of information already out there.

The idea of letting students use Wikipedia as a trusted source is truly something I will think about and review. According to page 58, some major news sources already consider it reliable. I also think the point about it gives our students information to question and analyze for validity is also important. I do believe it can help students become critical thinkers, questions, research and then come to a conclusion of their own.