Turning Wikipedia into an Asset for Schools
http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2005/07/turning_wikiped.html

Art Wolinsky and I went to dinner tonight just outside of
Atlantic City, where I'll be leading a two-day workshop on
documentary making for a group of elementary school
teachers. During dinner, Art and I talked about what I'll
be presenting tomorrow morning, as well as fun Internet
topics such as video blogging, podcasting and Wikipedia.

On Wikipedia in particular, we talked about the hostility
that many educators have towards the website, particularly
their concerns that it can't be considered a reliable
source. It's the classic dilemma of a wiki website -
because wikis allow any site visitor to edit or add
content, you raise the risk of getting content that isn't
up to snuff. And the fact that young and old alike often go
to Wikipedia and see that its name ends in -pedia, they
assume it's just like any other encyclopedia and they
should take its content as vetted, accurate information,
which ain't always the case.

I explained to Art the community of Wikipedia volunteers
known as Wikipedians who have created a system of checks
and balances to improve the quality of content and avoid
problems with virtual graffiti and inaccuracies. But it's
not a perfect system, so it's not a huge surprise that a
lot of educators just don't want their students utilizing
the site.

I had a flashback; a group of us on the WWWEDU email list
had tried to create a "Kidopedia" - an online encyclopedia
written entirely by kids - back in 1996, hosted by St.
John's University. It didn't get very far because all
encyclopedia entries were being posted manually by real
people; that, and the fact that it was hard to articulate a
compelling case as to why kids should be doing this in the
first place.

While I understand educators' concerns about directing kids
towards "reliable" reference sources, the more I think
about it, the more I think Wikipedia's flaws actually make
it an ideal learning tool for students. That may sound
counterintuitive, of course - how can you recommend a tool
that you know may not be accurate? Well, that's precisely
the point: when you go to Wikipedia, some entries are
better referenced than others. That's just a basic fact.
Some entries will have a scrupulous list of sources cited
and a detailed talk page on which Wikipedians debate the
accuracy of information presented in order to improve it.
Others, though, will have no sources cited and no active
talk pages. To me, this presents teachers with an excellent
authentic learning activity in which students can
demonstrate their skills as scholars.

Here's a quick scenario. Take a group of fifth grade
students and break them into groups, with each group
picking a topic that interests them. Any topic. Dolphins,
horses, hockey, you name it.

Next, send the groups of kids to Wikipedia to look up the
topic they selected. Chances are, someone has already
created a Wikipedia entry on that particular subject. The
horse, for example, has an extensive entry on the website.
It certainly looks accurate and informative, but is it?
Unfortunately, there are no citations for any of the facts
claimed about horses on the page.

This is where it gets fun. The group of students breaks
down the content on the page into manageable chunks, each
with a certain amount of facts that need to be verified.
The students then spend the necessary time to fact-check
the content. As the students work their way through the
list, they'll find themselves with two possible outcomes:
either they'll verify that a particular factoid is correct,
or they'll prove that it's not. Either way, they'll
generate a paper trail, as it were, of sources proving the
various claims one way or another.

Once the Wikipedia entry has been fact-checked, the teacher
creates a Wikipedia login for the class. They go to the
entry's talk page and present their findings, laying out
every idea that needs to be corrected. Then, they edit the
actual entry to make the corrections, with all sources
cited. Similarly, for all the parts of the entry they've
verified as accurate, they list sources confirming it. That
way, each idea presented in the Wikipedia entry has been
verified and referenced - hopefully with multiple sources.

Get enough classrooms doing this, you kill several birds
with one stone: Wikipedia's information gets better,
students help give back to the Net by improving the
accuracy of an important online resource, and teachers have
a way to make lemons into lemonade, turning Wikipedia from
a questionable information source to a powerful tool for
information literacy.

I can already see it now: an official K-12 Seal of Approval
put on Wikipedia entries that have been vetted by students.
Wish I were more handy in Photoshop. -andy


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Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldivide.net
http://www.tsunami-info.org
Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com
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OpenWorld Learning
http://www.openworldlearning.org