Monday, October 29, 2007
When Wikipedia Is the Assignment
Inside Higher Ed: "If there’s one place where scholars should be able to question assumptions about the use of technology in the classroom (and outside of it), it’s the annual Educause conference, which wrapped up on Friday in Seattle. At a morning session featuring a professor and a specialist in learning technology from the University of Washington at Bothell, presenters showed how Wikipedia — often viewed warily by educators who worry that students too readily accept unverifiable information they find online — can be marshaled as a central component of a course’s syllabus rather than viewed as a resource to be banned or reluctantly tolerated."
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6 comments:
wikipedia has been popping up all over the place recently in certain classes of mine and i'm glad that this article was posted. we recently were tested on 10 wiki articles, we were to go home, read them and come back prepared for a test on the material... fast forward 4 or 5 weeks and its midterms and now we are discussing ways to review and someone mentioned wikipedia articles as a means of review and immediately the conversation turned into well you should be relying on wikipedia as a reliable source, when just a few weeks earlier it was the reliable source. personally i use wikipedia t get a bottom-line basic understanding but when it is an ipen access type of program it is easy to find things that are presented as fact. im curious to see where wikipedia will be in the next few years as it seems to be on the rise in many circles.
I think it would be interesting to take a class like this. Academia loves to hate wikipedia, but it serves a very useful function. Writing a paper from it will not have good results, but that is not its purpose. The breadth of subject manner listed on wikipedia is unmatched, and there have been more times than i can count when I'm either looking for a paragraph on something, what it is, or a few decent links, and wikipedia tends to come through, whether its on a tv show or a device only otherwise referenced in patent databases.
Lots of classes are on campus are starting to use wiki for classroom use. beyond what the article says, it helps you focus your writing and article structure so that you can publish with chapters in an outline format that actually follows the outline. There is also some flexibility in presentation which teaches the most efficient way to present information.
This is a very interesting concept, because as the article says, some people's entries will not be accepted by wikipedia for lack of content or interest. I guess though that could be a grading criteria for the class, but really only if the class was a writing class and not an environmental history and globalization class. I think most people would agree that wiki is mostly a springboard for scholarship. Few people take wiki without any hesitations, but in general it gets the point across, and at the very least can provide a contex or definition for a topic. I can't say that I have ever had a professor tell us to specifically use wiki, but several times I have been told to use wiki to inform me on a topic in preperation for the next day's lecture.
Wikipedia has been sourced in test books before. More and more it is being used as a regarded source. It does serve as a useful place to start in that it tells us some basic information and then from there we c an find more specific information.
In addition, finding real world application of academic work can be especially trying to connect that with students. Students find it daunting to look towards publishing their research paper but it allows for them to get their work analyzed and edited by professionals while also giving them some of the effects of publishing.
Like Lydia, I only feel comfortable using Wikipedia as a way to get a general picture of the topic. When we were given the assignment to read the articles, I was a bit confused as so many teachers have warned us against using them. Although the company has set up new devices to help keep correct information on them, we need to continue to be cautious. There is always room for improvement however, and maybe one day we can use the website as a cited source.
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