Wikipedia's+Use+in+Schools

Mariah Voelkel, Leah Groh, Tameka Watkins

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Mariah Voelkel is using High School Research and Critical Literacy: Social Studies With and Despite Wikipedia By: Houman Harouni Leah Groh is using We live in a wikiworld. Should our students? By: Brett Potash Tameka Watkins is using Sleeping with the Enemy: Wikipedia in the College Classroom By: C.J. Chandler and A.S. Gregory

Wikipedia is banned from many schools today, but a few teachers according to the articles we have read believe that it could possibly be a useful source. Houman Harouni, Brett Potash, C.J Chandler, and A.S Gregory all felt skeptical about the use of wikipedia in the classroom. Each of the authors are educators in either a college or high school setting and have decided to conduct research on the use of Wikipedia. Brett Potash realized that as long as Wikipedia is accessible that students should be properly instructed on how to use it (Potash, 2009, p.6). He decided to first conduct some research to understand Wikipedia and decide if it really was a reliable source (Potash, 2009, p.1). The author decided to give his students a home work activity: they must change any Wikipedia entry and track it, but the change must be false (Potash, 2009, p.3). The result was that most student edits were quickly changed back to the original within a few days to even just a few hours (Potash, 2009, p.3). Houman Harouni also agreed that his students should be aware of how to use Wikipedia. He also decided to do research on Wikipedia stated "the vast array of information available on Wikipedia was useful in allowing for a research literacy curriculum that could fit into the various content areas” (2009, p.474). Harouni, decides to use it in the classroom, by contributing a midterm research paper to Wikipedia (2009, p.488). A requirement of this assignment is to involve a piece that the students would edit a poorly written article on Wikipedia and raise its quality (Harouni, 2009, p.488-489).This was a successful assignment that Houman Harouni wishes to continue in the future. During the spring semester of 2008 Chandler and Gregory collaborated to develop a research project that would challenge students to either create a new Wikipedia page, or add to an article that was already in progress. “The goals of this project were fourfold. Chandler and Gregory wanted the students to learn how to do college-level research, learn about the use of Wikipedia as a research tool, learn wiki-technology, and become better, more informed information consumers” (Chandler and Gregory, 2009, p.250). The results of the study came as a shock to both students and faculty. Initially the students were irritated with the thought of having to conduct a research project, however, they quickly began to take ownership for and pride in their projects. The students were quickly made aware of the different security measures Wikipedia has in place. There are certain rules and regulations in place to ensure the information is not only accurate but also inoffensive. Once the projects were posted on Wikipedia the students began to see exactly how easy it was for individuals to amend information posted on the website. There were instances where the information they posted was changed “to information that contradicted the sources” (Chandler and Gregory, 2009, p. 253). Some of the students were actually offended and distraught that someone would tamper with their work. One group of students had their work plagiarized from the Wikipedia page they posted (Chandler and Gregory, 2009, p. 253). By the end of the project the students had a new respect and understanding about why Wikipedia may not be the best site to use as a source for information. However, the silver lining to the Wikipedia cloud was that it proved to not be as inaccurate or useless as Dr. Chandler assumed and it is an excellent tool to find resources.

In conclusion, all of the authors agree that while Wikipedia could be found useful, it should not be the only source used. A fter a lot of research Harouni has incorporated the use of Wikipedia into his high school class room. Harouni says “As unfit as the entry information may be for citing an academic article or research paper the website is often surprisingly accurate, properly cited, and comprehensive” (2009, p.477). Even after his research has been completed Brett Potash still believes that Wikipedia should not be the only source of information for a research paper, he thinks that Wikipedia is best used for practice (Potash, 2009, p.6). Students can use Wikipedia to learn how to cite and edit articles. He states that "Wikipedia for the most part is well researched and kept up to date, but it is up to the reader to decide whether the information is of good quality" (Potash, 2009, p.3). Upon completion of their research Chandler and Gregory had to concede that Wikipedia may have a place in the classroom. One of their students said it best, "It's okay for the layperson to get an overview, but it's not good for research unless you just use it for the references" (2009, p. 255).