In three weeks of February, the Barack Obama entry in Wikipedia had almost 2 million views and was the seventh most visited (and, really, second most visited in terms of content) article on the site. John McCain‘s had 1.1 million. Hillary Clinton, who apparently more people “know” about, had about 422,000. In those same three weeks, the Wikipedia home page got over 140 million views.
The point? People are turning to Wikipedia in large numbers to learn about the topics that are of interest and importance to them. Many of them, no doubt, are kids. Go figure.
Now look, I know as people read down the entire list, there are entries that might make some uncomfortable. Sites that will make some say “See! We can’t let our kids be getting wrong information about THAT!” or in some cases, any information at all. I hear that.
But those kids who go to schools where Wikipedia is blocked or passed off as a non-credible resource or not in any way addressed in the curriculum are no doubt reading Wikipedia anyway without any context from us as to what it is and without any guidance from us as to how to use it well. And so, instead of seizing an opportunity to model for them the power of participation, to help them understand the importance of editing, and to give them a real sense of how the collaborative world works by involving them in the negotiation of the “truth” that those articles represent, we’re simply enabling our kids to use Wikipedia badly.
I’ll say it again. Errors are everywhere. You might as well shut down the Internet, unsubscribe to every newspaper and magazine your library gets, and turn off the television set if the concern is that kids might be getting inaccurate or biased information. If we’re not raising a generation of reader/editors, we’re not doing our jobs. Wikipedia can help in that work.
And, just in case you haven’t seen me ref this before, here’s hoping you’re not using this Physics textbook from the venerable Oxford University Press in your school if you have a problem with Wikipedia.
If you really want to give Wikipedia a test, here is one I tried. I submitted myself as a celebrity. I created an elaborate write-up. Said I had a book being published in the near future, provided links to information in Wikipedia that actually pertain to me from my Purdue days. Within 3 minutes the page was tagged for “speedy removal.” I had to argue in the talkback section why I was important enough to even have a Wikipedia page. I made my false arguments. The page was then removed 2 minutes later. This was on a Saturday night at 1AM CST. I figured it was a fluke. So, I pasted in my mediawiki code back into another page. Same result, however a different censor. My falsehoods were washed away from Wikipedia in a total of 6 minutes…. twice! Try it yourself and see what happens.
Thanks Jim…I’ve heard others with similar reports. Where else can errors be corrected so quickly and easily?
This is great, James. Just the sort of in-the-trenches example we need.
I’m also thinking that perhaps the most useful element of the Obama article, from a teaching and learning point of view, is the banner up at the top of the article which says: “This page has been protected from editing until March 14,or until disputes have been resolved”. What better way to learn about the power of participation, the editorial process, critical thinking, and the whole concept of working toward the truth than this? The lock, placed by theWikipedia editors, stands witness to the furious activity going on at this portion of the site during Obama’s campaign for the presidency. Teachers could ask students to come back to the site daily to check its status, read the discussion, and review the history tab (What’s changed? By whom? Why?). Students could blog about the campaign and about the way the information is changing in the Wikipedia article in realtionship to the campaign.
Wikipedia is fine as a place to get “basic information” but for HS Students, the time of using “encyclopedias” as a source for research papers is OVER. They need to be able to decipher intellectual arguments and BOOKS about subjects, not just a handful of paragraphs that summarize an issue.
The issue is not “is Wikipedia credible?” It is about the ability of students to digest more and more complex information and arguments. In addition, it is about their ability to distinguish “point of view” and “opinion” and to unravel complex arguments. It is also about their ability to do complex research beyond encyclopedias – which, by essence, do not look into the complexity of issues nearly as deeply other sources.
So, point is…like everything else, Wikipedia has its benefits and drawbacks. I teach my students that they may use it to “gain understanding” of an issue, but that for their citations and research they must go to other sources.
Books? I supose they have some use for backgroud but even there you are better useing review papers. Peer reviewed journals is a more reasonable requirement.
Yes. Books. Why shouldn’t students use books?
You “suppose they have some use as background”? Are you kidding me?? What kind of statement is this? They have a LOT more use than just “for background”.
Have you ever read “Guns, Germs and Steel”? A lot more than just “background” there. That’s just 1 example out of (literally) millions.
Try going beyond a basic HS textbook and you might find something other than “just background”.
Why exactly are “review papers” better? That makes no sense whatsoever. Both are valuable in their own way. There is no “better or worse”.
Isn’t part of the purpose of reading books and/or review papers to determine their “worth”? Your preference for review papers leaves you skipping an essential step in research (and completely eliminating one of the most important sources of information – books – with zero justification other than the fact that they are books). The “essential step” I refer to is the ability to decipher information and arguments and determine the worth of the source, regardless of form.
As a fan of Wikipedia (okay yes–I admit I sort of like Wikipedia) I do caution students to be aware of who makes contributions. But I want to caution readers here too, just as I caution my students, sometimes statistics tell a misleading story too.
Thanks so much for bringing this topic up. I’m not always sure that Wikipedia should be used as the end-all of sources, but it’s immediacy can be very helpful in supporting student research.
Print encyclopedias were arguable as valid sources as a shortcut because they didn’t list their own sources. As a 6th grader, if I find something useful in a print encyclopedia but I can’t find it in a book, it’s reasonable that I could trust the encyclopedia’s editors and cite the encyclopedia.
Wikipedia’s lack of a responsible editing team means you can’t trust it the same way. That’s why information in Wikipedia articles should be cited to its source — 6th grade (and other) researchers can then go find the actual source and cite that rather than Wikipedia. And if no citation is given in the Wikipedia article, you’ve got to find another lead on that information.
When I can sum up justification and proper use of Wikipedia as a valuable research tool in three sentences, how can schools justify banning it?
And just FYI… I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. I mean, yes, it’s cool how fast most things get fixed, but if you do it, then tell someone else about it, then they’ll do it 3 times to show their teacher friends, and then someone will show a class of students and they’ll all do it, and someone will do it at a conference session and everyone will go back to work and show everyone they work with… there are real people using real time to undo false and silly edits, it’s not automatic. : ) (Maybe if everyone bans Wikipedia from any use in any situation, you can do it then.)
I thoroughly agree with Christopher Abel. For me, the issue isn’t whether or not to use Wikipedia. The issue is for what purposes ANY encyclopedia should be used as a source. I also still wonder who is doing the editing on Wikipedia. Since I always hear the statement that Wikipedia is edited by folks who have the expert knowledge, over on Twitter (@dtd), I’ve been taking an informal poll of my “experts” to see how many of them edit articles. So far, not a huge number.
I wonder how important it is to edit as opposed to knowing that you can edit, what editing means, and what it means to do it with someone else. Though, there is no better way to learn than by doing.
Thanks for the comment.
Is that Physics book correction site for real? If so, what a great parallel.
For real. ;0)
The Physics book errata list does look pretty bad… mind you, its from a book of almost 800 pages, so the error count per page isn’t too bad. Its also from a book almost 10 years old.
The second edition (2004) appears to have fixed a few of these issues.
A clear benefit of web-resources is the ability to fix errors when discovered – once its it print, you have to rely on errata lists (if given). Does make a good case for getting as much feedback before going into print with something at technical as a college level physics textbook.
Banning wikipedia from schools? Probably the decision of some brilliant administrator. I don’t get it. Why not use it as a tool. Ask the students to find an article and evaluate it for truthfulness.
I was showing Wikipeida to my year 9 class, and just to demonstrate the editable natire of a wiki I called up the entry on smoking, clicked Edit, and changed the text from saying “smoking is bad for your health” to instead read “smoking is not bad for your health”. I clicked save and the kids were astounded that it was that easy for anyone to say anything, whether it was right or not.
We discussed this for a few minutes, and then I pressed the refresh button, to find that the error had already been corrected.
The important thing about wikipedia is not that it might be incorrect, but that the can be fixed.
I also think people miss the fact that the edits are not generally made by one or two people, but by dozens – even hundreds – of people. This critical mass of editors is what makes it work… subversive entries don’t last , because ther white hats outnumber the black hats.
I have blogged about this very thing at http://betch.edublogs.org/2007/08/19/commanding-the-tide-to-stay-out/
I’ve just started my doctorate, and, for the first time in my life, I was directed to use only peer-reviewed research articles for sources. It didn’t matter in high school, college, or for my master’s degree. Unless teachers are going to tell their students that they can only use “doctorate level” articles, then really almost anything should be used as a source. Most English teachers (and I was one for 13 years) would say that research is about finding sources that are legitimate and learning how to cite them. Unfortunately, teachers often decide Wikipedia is not a legitimate source because of its reputation, but don’t filter out any other sources a student might use. And now that students can use websites to create their citations, the reason for research papers needs to change. It should be about looking at other people’s arguments and developing your own, even if the argument is from Wikipedia or another social site. If research papers are used strictly to regurgitate facts, then there’s another problem, isn’t there?
Wikipedia doesn’t really present “arguments” does it? Otherwise, I think you make good points.
I would like to add that any good teacher should require that students submit “potential sources” before continuing on w/ their research/writing in any way. The teacher then needs to “filter” those sources and ask the student to figure out HOW and WHY certain sources are expressions of opinion, statements of fact, an academic argument, editorial, etc. etc.
In other words, students need to be taught how to determine “bias” “point of view” “opinion vs. fact” and a variety of other essential skills. This should be an essential part of any good English or Social Studies teacher’s job.
barack obama is my hero.
After reading the RSS feed that I got regarding this post I decided that I wanted to leave a comment, because I feel that if taught how to use it correctly Wikipedia can be a useful source . . . so I tried to click on it but apparently my school blocks Weblogg-ed . . . lovely!
After reading your post and seeing the Physics book errors, I decided to find the errors in one of the textbooks I use(d). Astounding!
We use the books, wikipedia, and many sources for background.
Critical assessment of sources and using information to generate new content allows us to keep this all in perspective.
Just use the static version of Wikipedia with articles selected for school children (there is a DVD version, too): http://schools-wikipedia.org/
I have more info on it here:
http://edtechdev.blogspot.com/2007/07/wikipedia-dvd-for-schools.html
That takes away the problems with the wikipedia site itself – bad anonymous admins and editors, vandalism which leads to Wikipedia blocking entire school districts and regions, etc.
People forget that Wikipedia itself (the admins) blocks many more schools (and entire countries) than the other way around.
Coming from a high school where my teachers would forbid us from even thinking about visiting the website Wikipedia, to a college where we had to make our own Wikipedia account I can personally say that I think Wikipedia is a great tool. Before having to make an account to Wiki I would never visit the site because of what my high school teachers told me about it, but now that I have explored it I find it very useful. Whenever I need facts cleared up on a person or even a definition word I can go to the Wiki and find that information. Like you said if we are going to say do not use Wiki becaues of the fasle information on it we might as well stop using the entire internet because there will always be some kind of error everywhere we look. As a teacher I will personally allow my students to use Wikipedia, but warn them about the troubles it may cause in misleading information.
After readin the initial post I decided to go to the Obama entry in Wikipedia and found it “protected” until March 14.
Any idea what that is all about? McCain and Clinton were not “protected. That in itself would be a great lesson and discussion to pursue.
You are absolutely right about the popularity of Wikipedia among students and the potential and possibility offered to us educators. Such a powerful and impressive teaching tool, it is a shame that so many of our colleagues discourage its use and miss the opportunity themselves of contributing to the body of information, and helping to ensure ‘accuracy’.
I had a professor in college for an advanced class in history for Historical Method, thing was it was my first history class.
The class was structured back in 80’s to make you questions supposedly ” Reliable ” sources.
The professor himself was pretty brilliant and not radical, but he saw all “reliable sources of information, particularly where history was concerned as in need of further “verification” or at least close enthusiastic examination.
This professor would set us loose in a library of Microfiche with a few sentences or blurb from a “reliable” source to verify or get a broader view of a set of stated facts. Then write a weekly paper on why you found and share it next week.
It was the damndest thing for people who think “knowing, ” is learning, or that the published word especially if it is published in a “reliable’ place as gospel (actually you can take them for gospel, considering historically speaking the gospels them selves cannot be Verified all but John Originating from a source called Q, even though they are published in a reputable place)
Historical Method 02 Just turned over the whole vegetable cart. These gruesome exercises made me see the published word in a way that made me question the idea of “reliable sourceâ€
To now relate this rant to Wikipedia: Wikipedia is very often “reliable†and it seems to me that one of its strengths is that we don’t take everything as “ gospel†as some of it is “gossipâ€
The other thing this professor taught me is indeed some of history has it’s origin “ gossip†and “ rumorâ€
The real strength is perhaps that the collaborative component makes Wikipedia open to challenge and interpretation. Not a source of “ divine truth†but a way to share information, with an eye towards truth and verifiable fact. I learned in Historical Method 02 that is the best you can hope for.
I would like to add this tidbit after all the discussion about information validity etc.
I added information into Wikipedia that is available in NO OTHER source. So few people know the information that it would probably be lost if I did not add it.
Is it important? Perhaps not to you, but perhaps to someone. But it is detail about a place that would be lost to all history if someone didn’t place it somewhere.
Jimmy Wales says the purpose of Wikipedia is to collect the sum of all human knowledge (wow!).
What I know is that if a student wanted to know about my place/information, s/he MUST come to Wikipedia.
Hmmmmm….
I agree… I used to play in an underground sort of band back in the 80s, and of course there was no mention of the band anywhere on the web. I went to Wikipedia, wrote an *accurate* article about it (I know it’s accurate because it happened to me!) and posted to the wiki.
I think that’s about as democratic a process as you can get… our little band is listed in the world’s biggest knowledge repository… I don’t have to convince anyone that we were worthy of being added… i just added it.
So there!
BTW, the band was The Jellybabies