This afternoon I read the article, "Are We Ready to Use Wikipedia to Teach Writing?" by Robert Cummings. It was really interesting to hear the different points of view regarding whether or not using wikipedia in the classroom is credible. There were numerous blog commentaries following the article that were also “entertaining” to read.
My college literature students write a few essays, and I caution them against using wikipedia. I don’t make a huge issue about it, but I mention that when they really are in college next year, using wikipedia most likely will not be acceptable. It’s an interesting place to look to get general information- I know I do!! But for an academic essay, there are more credible resources available.
However, what I most enjoyed was a couple of lesson plans that were mentioned. Cummings himself uses wikipedia as a place for his students to write and be published. Throughout the course he brings the students from writing only for him, the teacher, to building up to larger audiences- culminating in the world wide web. Students learn about audience, voice, and how to deal with feedback once their reviews are published on wikipedia. I was very intrigued by this lesson idea.
Further on, a person names Jami, who is a lecturer at Cornell University, suggested a lesson in which students can research a term or concept on wikipedia, then they must further research it in different locations, then write about the comparisons and contrasts.
But ultimately, with anything, any type lesson of lesson should be done in moderation. It’s important to differentiate in your classroom- so using wikipedia as one lesson should be completely acceptable.
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I also read this article by Cummings and blogged about it - I think the lessons are very useful and adequate for college-level students. They need to know what a reliable source looks like and that only one side (read: one source) is not enough. Our college ESL courses require researched speeches and writings (depending on the class) with a minimum number of sources (sometimes depends on the instructor). Currently, there is an instructor requiring at least four sources and Wikipedia is the only website allowed - the rest of the information has to come from books, journal articles, magazines, etc. I have asked, though, if Wikipedia is the ONLY web source, or just that students only use ONE web source. This depends on the topic - she just meant one web source, and if they used Wikipedia then that would constitute that Internet site as their only web site.
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