It's amazing how many times I've heard teachers talk of Wikipedia in negative terms. Common complaints surround the student plagiarism and direct 'lifts' from Wikipedia sources. These days it's fairly easy to spot...type a key phrase into Google and see what happens...:-) I also wonder in these cases if the assessment/assignment is appropriate. If a student can answer with straight plagiarism - what HOTS are being used?
Another criticism commonly leveled is the reliability of information on Wikipedia. Well....I think the statistics start to kill that one fairly quickly.
The link below takes you too an article that supports the use of Wikipedia in the classroom. It answers these types of criticism well and focuses educators on a question - do you ban it, or do you teach how? It really comes back to that. If we don't use it, how do students learn the skills of assessing reliability and validity? If we really embrace Wikipedia by incorporating it into teaching learning practices, we assist students to see the power of public intellectualism, broaden their audience and contribute to the public good...all worthy aspirations from my point of view.
Read the blog that started this in full
http://readwrite.com/2012/09/20/why-wikipedia-does-belong-in-the-classroom
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