Encyclopedias
It seems that every time I read about the various different learning resources available to us I learn something new. After taking LLED 469 I was made aware of the many learning resources offered to us online, some free and some for a fee. I knew that Grolier, World Book and Wikipedia all existed online. What I did not know what that Wikipedia was a free, online resource run by thousands of volunteers and made available to almost everyone on our planet. It was interesting to read Grolier’s take on these volunteers. The comments made by Panelas that the writers for Grolier were “busy and serious people who expect to get paid for their work” (Wikipedia and Britannica The Kid’s All Right (And so is The Old Man) Vol. 14 No. 3 March 2006) seems to imply that the people writing for Wikipedia are not busy, serious or important because they are not experts on their subjects and do not get paid for what they do. If I were one of the writers for Wikipedia I would be insulted by that comment. Just because someone does something voluntarily does not mean that they are not good at what they do.
I like the fact that whatever is written for Wikipedia must be verifiable and provide a neutral point of view. I believe that it is important to be able to view the history tab and see exactly what has been happening with the article since the first posting. I would definitely allow my students to use Wikipedia as a starting point to their learning based resource projects but I would not allow it to be the only resource used. They would have to be able to verify the information found on Wikipedia with a minimum of 3 other resources.
In its first outing into the world, Wikipedia was seriously invalid - but as the checks and balances were tightened and access was cut of for fraudulent writing it has become better and better. I can see no reason why it cannot be used as part of a suite of reference sources for a student project.
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