Last week, an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on the use of Wikipedia in the college atmosphere. The high use of Wiki in for college research is not really surprising, and unless there are some great measures curbing the use of Wiki as a research tool, I doubt that this will change much. The argument against the use of Wikipedia is simple and straightforward: anyone can write something on Wikipedia. Where was this dependence on Wikipedia created? Well….simply…in high school.
Millions of high school students are taking a class in U.S. History right now. Those same students will all be learning about Andrew Jackson and I assume that thousands of students will have to write something on this moderately known president. Google Andrew Johnson; the first entry is Wikipedia while the second one is from the White House. Even more Wiki describes it’s entry on the Google page as the following:
“Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh President of the
While the next best informative description of the ten on the first Google search page is from the State Library of North Carolina stating:
“A brief biography of Andrew Jackson who became a national hero during the War of 1812, was a Congressman, a
The Wiki entry, besides being the first entry, provides more topical information immediately and provides numbers (for those teachers who test on dates). It is much more alluring. All it takes is for a teacher to ask, “When did Andrew Jackson…” and the student knows they need a date and they know that this site has them. What ever worked in high school will be the first thing they will try in college. Why change if success was achieved?
Those that ever did any type of in-depth research at the college level know that while Wiki might have some background, it is not for research. The report does point out that students use it as an intro to the topic which they are researching, just to get background information. Personally, I agree with this use of Wikipedia.
So where does this leave a high school teacher in preparing students for the future concerning research and the use of Wikipedia? The answer is creating an awareness of Wiki limitations. Here are some easy ideas to create awareness (not suspend or forbid the use) of Wikipedia in the classroom (this also works well for colleges):
1) Purposely use Wikipedia – Have the students copy one or two entries and submit it before the due date of the actual assignment. Now every one can see up front what is on line. On completion of the assignment ask one more question: Are there any differences you discovered between Wiki and the actual research? If there are then you are fostering an awareness of the limitations (omissions or untruths) of the site. Deeper research will not be there but simpler high school and intro topics will be there. Forbidding and disregarding some elements of research does not create awareness, but ignorance.
2) Create a Wiki page that is fictitious and ask the students to report on the topic – Some will say that the topic does not exist, showing they actually did research. Some will just copy the wiki site. “Punish” them for not realizing what they are doing. This again creates awareness…mean grading is optional.
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