Wikipedia, To Use or Not To Use

As a social science teaching major, perhaps no website has caused as much controversy as Wikipedia. In both high school and then when I was earning my Bachelor's of Science in History, I heard over and over again, do not use Wikipedia. The warnings were a lot like the ones mentioned in this blog entry that are sceptical of Wikipedia: http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2006/07/wikipedia_in_the_classroom_con.html. You cannot trust that the material, anyone is allowed to edit, Wikipedia makes a lot of mistakes. Unfortunately of these criticisms seemed to be based on the same information they are allegedly complaining about. For instance, an entry on SCHOOLS@hslc.org listserv (ironically, a non-for-profit group designed to promote information sharing among its members) warned that Wikipedia was unsafe. I have been unable to locate this entry despite looking for it, but ironically it brings up an equally good point, you claim something is unsafe but no one can look at your evidence and determine if it is accurate. However, Wikipedia itself does not do that it allows information to be changed over time and allows everyone to provide evidence to prove their position is correct.

I know from first hand experience that professors, teachers, and students have all used Wikipedia to aid them in teaching material or completing assignments. Perhaps the most blatant use of this hypocrisy I have ever seen is that my European Politics professor claimed we should not use Wikipedia but a book she wrote and assigned to us, listed a Wikipedia webpage as a source. The reality is if students are taught to use Wikipedia properly it can be an effective tool both in and out of the classroom. Wikipedia as mentioned previously is a great starting point for research. I know from experience that using Wikipedia as a starting point has led not just to reputable, scholarly, peer-reviewed articles on the topic but can also led to interesting first source material, which is a great tool to have in any social science classroom because it makes the material more relevant and interesting for students. I mean what are the odds that a traditional encyclopedia will ever include the original text of the resistance letters written by the White Rose member in 1942 and 1943 (an intellectual German resistance movement that opposed the Nazis). The reality is no traditional encyclopedia ever could but yet we still encourage students to use textbooks and encyclopedias to help start their research in middle school and sometimes in high school. The reality is we need to show students how to analyze Wikipedia correctly, know how to spot biases in the entries, and even how to correct mistakes they find in Wikipedia using material that is accurate. If all of us simply stop seeing Wikipedia as a threat, people will be able to see it as a useful, relevant source, although it will probably never be as accepted as an academic journal article or an academic book, but that is probably a good thing because if Wikipedia became a book it would lose some of its most important contributions as an effective teaching aid.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/savaman/202417519/