Sunday, February 8, 2009

Wikiwhat?

So now on to wikis... Personally I was always against letting students use wikis for research in the past. Why you say? Because I thought ther'e would be issues with false information and hearsay. On the flip side though, wikis are quick and information can be posted with lightning speed, unlike the good old encyclopedia. I am going to be doing a unit soon that requires students to do some research. Should I allow the use of wikipedia? Should I not? What do you all think? Maybe allow wikipedia but tell students they must find that same information elsewhere as well to "back up the facts"? Still leary but it's technology so I have to go there! :)

4 comments:

  1. I think that it would be okay to allow students to use wikis to find information. However, you need to tell students that information must be valid. Maybe having them find it elsewhere won't be a bad idea. But as we discussed in class, Wikipedia requires a source to be posted so it might just work.

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  2. I'm in the same boat. For a quick search for a definition I have personally gone to wikipedia, but questioned the validity of it. When my own children were doing research for a school project I MADE them go to several different sites to collect info., but both children pointed out that the information they collected was all the same as what was on Wikipedia. Now I let them use it as one of the sources, but still have additional sources. (Their teachers agree)

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  3. I like the idea of making sure that they find the information else where.

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  4. Like you said, making sure they back up their facts is a good idea. Professionals do that anyway, so it's a good skill to teach them. You can't just look one place and assume the information is valid.

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