Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Wikipedia

Wikipedia poses many problems when it comes to using it for a credible site.  Middlebury College established a policy saying that Wikipedia could no longer be used as a proper source of information.  Some students' work was incorrect because they got their facts from this website.  I agree withe the colleges decision.  Even though Wikipedia is convenient, you can never be sure what is right or wrong.  I only use it to get a basic understanding of something then I move onto a better website.  Some of the policies were lenient in this manner.  They aloud students to look at it but encouraged them to not cite it as their main resource.  One of the teachers also saw it as a great teaching opportunity when students made the mistakes of using it.

I think there is only so much you can do to prevent students from accessing Wikipedia.  Within the schools network, they could block it so that you can not even access it at school.  This would help filter out most of the problems in high school students.  If teachers warn children about it early enough, then they will not use it.  I was told all through high school to never use information from it and to not cite it.  After being told so many times I never think twice about Wikipedia.  Faculty should remind students that it is not a credible source for information and it should be avoided.

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