Monday, January 31, 2011
From an educational perspective (as a both a current student and a future teacher) is Wikipedia a blessing or a burden? As a teacher, what would you tell your future students about Wikipedia's role in education?
From an educational perspective as a students Wikipedia is neither a blessing nor a burden. Many of my college professors do not allow students to use Wikipedia as a source of information. I do not believe it to be a burden because I still like to get to the website and get general information of the subject that I am writing about. As a future teacher I believe Wikipedia could be a blessing because it is easy access to almost any information that I would want my students to study and be able to understand. The outline of the website is what makes it the easiest to understand. The table of contents can point you in the direction of the subtopic of your topic. I would tell my students that Wikipedia's role in education is not to make things "easier" but to make things a lot more easy to understand. I would also tell them not to go too attached to the website because many of their college professors (unless something changes in the next 3-4 years), will not permit them to use Wikipedia as a citation in a paper,whether it be a research paper or something else.
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The table of contents is a unique attribute that Wikipedia has. I feel like any place that is used for research should have a table of contents on each and every subject in its database, it would make research a lot more easier and more efficient.
ReplyDeleteI like how you state that Wikipedia is neither a blessing nor a burden. It is definitely a different perspective than some of the other blogs I have read and made me rethink what I said in my blog.
ReplyDeleteI think that you made a very valid point about telling your future students to not get attached to the website and Wikipedia is easy to understand.
ReplyDelete-Rachel
I agree that wikipedia is a great starting point in the research process and the setup does make it in fact "easier". i would never let my sudents use the site as a source either.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with what you said, and had a very similar view posted on my blog. Nicely said.
ReplyDeleteMost of my professors and teachers are and have been the exact same way! I think it made me bias to Wikipedia because they were always so against it, I just assumed it was terrible. Also, I like how you said its not to make life easier but just easier to understand :)
ReplyDelete