It is very exciting to work for a community college where Madonna, a famous American recording-artist and actress, is a distinguished alumni award recipient. We all have dreams of Madonna speaking at commencement or performing for our 50th anniversary celebration. If only this were true and our dreams had a chance of becoming a reality. According to Wikipedia, Madonna received the 2008 distinguished alumni award recipient at Delta College, where I am employed as a Financial Aid Officer and Adjunct Instructor. The reason I know that this information is incorrect, is because I personally edited the Wikipedia page as part of a research assignment for my EDU 590 course at Central Michigan University. On Sunday evening I made several bogus changes to the wiki page information plus added this impressive component about Madonna. By Monday morning, the minor word modifications had been corrected. However, by Thursday of the same week, the additional information about Madonna had not been corrected nor deleted.
With excitement, I could not wait to get started on this internet exercise. One reason is that this assignment offers a chance for me to learn about Wikipedia, something I have very limited experience and working knowledge of. It also opened up an opportunity for me to discuss this subject with my school-aged children. Their main comment to me was “we are told not to use Wikipedia as a resource, but we do anyway.”
Freedom of speech in America is part of the 1st Amendment of our Bill of Rights. An extension of this amendment is Freedom of information. Americans have the right to speak freely as well as the right to access information from the Web. In my personal opinion, the main responsibility for educators today is not to discourage students from using Wikipedia or other similar websites, but to teach them how to scrutinize information on the Web. Unfortunately, like most students today, my children use Wikipedia out of convenience. I am disappointed they are not learning how to analyze the information they are researching to responsibly and effectively use Wikipedia and sites like it.
Scott Jaschik put my thoughts very eloquently in his article “A Stand Against Wikipedia.” “Students face an ocean of information today, much of it of poor quality, so a better approach would be to teach students how to triangulate a source like Wikipedia, so they could use other sources to tell whether a given entry could be trusted. I think our goal should be to equip students with the critical thinking skills to judge." (Jaschik)
Unlike my entry change in Wikipedia, imagine someone reading information from a wiki site that would be cause for alarm. My professional goal - they will be able to continue to further research the subject and have the knowledge to discard the opinions and put the emphasis on the facts.
Bibliography
Jaschik, Scott. "A Stand Against Wikipedia." Inside Higher Ed. Web.
18 Jan 2011. < http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki>.
Williams, Greg. “Wikipedia As Cartoons.” Drawn. Web. 18 Jan 2011.
Connie,
ReplyDeleteI couldn’t honestly agree more. The fact that students now are using Wikipedia as a main source in their research is definitely based on convenience instead of looking up scholarly sources. Students aren’t checking if the information given on Wikipedia is even based off of a scholarly source in the bibliography portion of each page. Teachers all through my high school career have never told us to NOT use Wikipedia, but most have said to use it as supplementary information to support ideas and does not count as a source for our 5-10 scholarly sources. The use of Wikipedia can give people up to date information that is also true, but students gathering research for topics don’t necessarily cross reference other resources to make sure the basis of their Wikipedia information is true.
I found it very interesting that you referenced “freedom of speech” and “freedom of information”. Especially since this is dealing with Wikipedia, which is all about people having the freedom to write whatever they want on a page! I wouldn’t have even thought to tie in freedom of information and apply it to this assignment but after reading your blog post, it has a lot to do with the structure of information and the truth of the information provided from Wikipedia.
-Rob Alford
Connie, I enjoyed reading your story about try to change an entry on Wikipedia. Doing that one learns to use Wikipedia and gains the opportunity to learn how to share valid research or information that you may have or know to submit as an author. I learned that a person can also submit photos. So it is one way to gain recognition for knowledge or work done. This can be valid for recognition of a students research or work they achieve.
ReplyDeleteI too agree that students everywhere must practice and learn the ethical ramifications of using the internet be it Wikipedia or other source. Students need to learn what makes Wiki research credible. The student really may find that just copying words off Wikipedia may not be the best way to go.
Connie,
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed reading your blog posts very much over the course of this semester. Your attention to detail in the assignment is impressive and the pictures that you use are wonderful!
I love reading about the fact that you are learning so much throughout this process, as I am as well. Implying that Madonna graduated from Delta College where you are employed was a great way to create a personal connection with your assignment. I suppose you won't ever forget this experience after that story!
I couldn't agree more with your opinion on this matter. You wrote, "In my personal opinion, the main responsibility for educators today is not to discourage students from using Wikipedia or other similar websites, but to teach them how to scrutinize information on the Web." I think you couldn't have stated that any better. There is an incredible need to encourage our students to cross-check their references, rather than continuously creating lists of what sites they should not be using.
Thank you once again for sharing!