So before my flight home got canceled, I had a great day just outside of Green Bay speaking to superintendents and principals at the FIEL conference about the Germanic influences on the English language. I mean…um…the Read/Write/Connect/Reflect Web.
But here was just a classic teachable moment:
I’m showing how the last 500 edits in Wikipedia occurred over the last 2.5 minutes and how that translates to something like 300,000 edits a day when someone raises his hand and says “so take a look at the very last edit on the list…the one about Ronald McDonald.” I look at my own list, and of course, due to the deluge of edits on Wikipedia, there is no Ronald McDonald edit listed, and so we go to the site and see (Caution: vile and unpretty stuff ahead) this. I say something like “yep, this is the issue with Wikipedia isn’t it? So let’s fix it.” And silly me, I start going in and deleting the picture and erasing the bad words, and by the time I’m done doing all of that I hit save and wouldn’t ya know, someone else had come in and reverted the page back to a more appropriate version.
“See?” I say. Vandals come in at 14:27 and start mucking it up, page fixed within 10 minutes.
That’s why Wikipedia is worth a second, third and fourth look from educators.
Amazing.
Technorati Tags: wikipedia, literacy, education, learning, collaboration
I have actually noticed that phenomenon quite a bit myself — i.e., logging in to fix some vandalism, only to discover someone else was already on it. Someone said at EduBloggerCon, and I regret I can’t remember who, that you can gauge the accuracy of an article by how much passion folks generally have for the subject.
I’ve enjoyed reading your blog for several months now and this is the first post that inspires me to write. Perhaps I’m too close to this issue. I think I get your point….the power of a collaborative learning tool complete with vandal police….who could knock it! As one who makes a living delivering information solutions to schools, serves on a school board and has 3 children, I’m guessing that while it was an amazing chain of events, your enthusiasm was lost on this group. I see Wikipedia being relegated to the back of the bus in 90% of the schools (that allow access) I visit. As a demonstration of a collaborative learning tool it’s very good, but your example speaks volumes about the lack of authority…..a huge concern. With all the issues surrounding information literacy and developing critical thinkers, there is a lot to look at without the 10 minute risk of false information.
Wouldn’t that be a lower-case ‘g’ as in german?
I’m a college English instructor, and I will not allow my students to use Wikipedia as a source for their research papers. It simply isn’t credible. Fortunately, there are alternatives in a wiki format being developed by experts that don’t allow just anyone to make changes: the Citizendium Project, Scholarpedia, and Digital Universe.
Hope you enjoyed your stay in the GB area — at least your flight wasn’t canceled due to snow.
Elizabeth, I agree with you in part.
The keyword here that is missing is citable. I wouldn’t want students to use Wikipedia as a citable source, but the resource itself is very useful and provides a great deal of infomration that can be validated and cited from other sources.
I had a similar experience. The day the “Croc Hunter” died, I took my undergraduate class to Wikipedia. Behold, we all got to witness male genitalia on the big screen. So, without losing my cool, I said “this is a great learning experience”. I hit “edit”, deleted the pics … but as in your own experience, the pornography had already been removed.
Great learning experience for me and my students … although, very scary in some ways. I’ve learned to the use the projector “no show” button much more regularly.
Sorry to hear the flight was cancelled. You could have come back to DePere and spent the rest of the afternoon listening to F.I.E.L fellows discussing the day and making plans for our districts. Your enthusiasm was not lost on this group, quite the opposite, validating the potential use of Wikipedia. Thanks.
In the book “Everything Is Miscellaneous” by David Weinberger there a discussion about the accuracy and editing of Wikipedia. Yes it is a new frontier in information. But there have been experts who have done studies comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia and Britanica and the findings were that it is very accurate. It is more important than ever that we teach students the information literacy skills they need to operate in the sea of information. The collaborative nature of wikis is here to stay and those of us who have relied on our old standard resources are going to have to learn these new techniques ourselves. There is authority in Wikipedia but you must dig for it. Read the discussion pages for articles. They are a wealth of information. Wikipedia also will post a disclaimer on articles that are in dispute, etc.
This was a great heads up for me thinking about using wikis in my high school math class. I am wondering if anyone knows if you can get a “tally” of comments in a blog. For instance, if I have a requirement that students have to respond to a certain number of blogs, is there any way that I can track their progress – how many they have responded to? This would be great but I’m not sure that it exists!!
I’ve been surprised at the wealth of information that can be found on Wikipedia. Unfortunately there will always be a few juveniles in the group who will vandalize, but overall the information has been useful, but I don’t always know that it is credible and verifiable. I do not advise students to use it as a referenced source, but it can be a good way to look up something quickly, or to get a research project started by gathering some background information.
Will, People might say that they don’t like Wikipedia because of the way that it is developed. I don’t think that’s true. I’d argue that some people don’t like Wikipedia because they are afraid of what a publicly developed encyclopedia means to their own careers as specialized academics. If anybody can post to Wikipedia, did they waste their time in going to school?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Schools
Q: How is is that there are something like 133,000 schools in the US, presumably(!) filled with people who understand the basics of writing and citation, and there are exactly 14 school/school district articles that have achieved Good Article status or better?
A: How many readers of this blog have contributed more than minor fixes to a WP article? (To be fair, elementary and middle/junior high articles are almost definitely non-notable by WP standards, eliminating the majority of schools.)
I’m disappointed with academics and librarians who discredit WP without being aware of the _massive_ amount of honest effort invested, the complex behind-the-scenes systems and discussions, etc. It’s almost like burning every book, magazine, or newspaper from a certain publisher when you find a single error in one of their publications.