More on Wikipedia
I was involved in an interesting conversation about Wikipedia the other day when I was at an all-day workshop (well, really it was a 45-minute workshop disguised as an all-day workshop…but I digress). The other person (who’s a librarian somewhere, I think) told us about some teacher in her building who won’t let the kids use Wikipedia. Not only can’t they use it, but this teacher does an activity with the kids where she has them make an erroneous change to an entry; not a big mistake, but a little one that isn’t glaring. Then they “watch” the entry all semester to see if anyone catches it.
Oy. This makes my stomach hurt in so many way. First of all, it’s vandalism and unethical. Secondly… why are people so scared of it? Why can’t we teach the kids to be responsible, critical information consumers?
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About
Debbie Harris is the director of educational technology at the Sager Solomon Schechter Day School in Northbrook, IL. Involved in Jewish education for over thirty years, she has an education degree from Northwestern University with a concentration in instructional media and a master’s degree in professional Jewish studies from Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership. She is skilled in using and teaching desktop publishing, video editing, presentation and animation software; and consults and presents regularly on integrating technology into Judaic studies. Her students podcast, blog, edit video and create claymations. She co-chaired the technology track for CAJE 33 in Vermont, is a SMART Certified Trainer for SMART Notebook, and a 2011 recipient of the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education.
When not learning, teaching or writing about technology, Debbie likes to sketchnote and craft. She likes to knit, do calligraphy, sew, watercolor, paint fabric and just generally play with fun toys like scrapbooking supplies and anything with texture. Debbie travels to California every summer to paint tallitot with high school aged campers. Finally, she is incredibly proud of her two daughters; Lori, who teaches English at a community college; and Allie, who is the director of the URJ’s Camp Newman in California.
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MuseForJews 
You’re talking about wikipedia instead of a smaller wiki? I do think it’s wrong to tamper with wiki that everyone in the world uses. I do think it could be a valuable lesson for the kids though…along the lines of those exercises where kids are taught to read through the whole test before starting, then the next day they get a pop quiz where at the bottom of the page there’s a statement like, ‘don’t fill out anything on this test except your name’…can you tell I got caught by this back in 6th grade? I can count on one hand any tests I’ve taken since that i didn’t read through as much as I was allowed to before starting 🙂 – but again, interfering with wiki for those out of the class sounds wrong, and the whole-semester seems like a dragging on of the point. Seems something similar could be done within the confines of one assignment or one week, right? In the interest of *teaching* kids to be critical consumers…
I absolutely agree that we need to teach our kids to be savvy, educated consumers of information, especially when over their lifetime the body of “collective wisdom” will grow more and more. I do have an issue, though, with trying to “trick” the system by making intentional errors and waiting to see if they get fixes, especially with a public site such as Wikipedia.
My preference would be to involve the students in actually reading Wikipedia entries about which they do know something and seeing how they could improve them, not how they could break them.