Wikipedia and the Classroom Lesson

As many of you know Wikipedia is now going to be changing how articles are submitted because of the recent case brought about by John Seigenthaler. An entry appearing in Wikipedia had very misleading information about Seignethaler. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, hopes that the new rules will also curb the number of entries in Wikipedia that occur on a daily basis for the online encylopedia.

I plan on sharing the article with my students for several reasons. My middle schoolers are very naive and take everything they read at face value; they do not distinguish from fact and opinion very well nor do they have the knowledge and experiences that would cue them to something is wrong with an entry from Wikipedia. With many wonderful things Wikipedia has going for it, there is the potential of abuse from anonymous people. Students need to be made aware that there are good sources and better sources; they need to know that some sources are more scholarly than others. Students need to know that when an article is by Anonymous, they should be advised to avoid it or not use it all. To quote the founder of Wikipedia:

"In many cases the types of things we see going on are impulse vandalism."

Students need to be made aware of the consequences that when posting erroneous items, they can be legally punished.