[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia education

[Isabell Long]

2009/9/29 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>:
> 2009/9/29 Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se>:
>>
>> This weekend I learned about the phrase "Wikipedia education".
>> Apparently it is used in Swedish ("Wikipedia-undervisning") to
>> describe the kind of teacher-less lessons where school kids are
>> left to "research" a topic on their own. Typically they google and
>> find facts in Wikipedia, which they copy to their papers.  The
>> phrase does not say anything about Wikipedia in itself, but
>> describes an irresponsible attitude from some teachers.  The sad
>> effect is that Wikipedia's name is associated with something bad.
>>
>> How could we turn this around, so Wikipedia is associated with
>> serious knowledge and good education?
>
> What you describe isn't necessarily a bad thing. Independent learning
> and research is a very important part of education. It all comes down
> to the details of how it is done.

I agree.  Some of my teachers have set homework tasks and just said
'copy/paste from Wikipedia if you want, I don't care as long as it is
done', others have said the complete opposite - 'don't use Wikipedia,
it's bad and unreliable'.  I have been wanting correct those teachers
who have said it is wrong in pointing out some of the main policies
concerning reliability of content and sources, but I haven't had the
chance yet.  I do think it's shocking though, the divide.  I haven't
yet mentioned I contribute to Wikipedia, I did in my last school and
they didn't really care.  ;)

-- 
Regards,
Isabell Long.  <isabell121 at gmail.com>
[[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects.
Freenode Community Co-Ordinator - issyl0 on irc.freenode.net
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