[Year 12 IT Apps] Accuracy of Wikipedia

Wed Apr 18 09:28:15 EST 2012

too true

I created a wikipedia account at home and found that I could use it at a previous school without any issues even though the school's IP was blocked from editing. That block applies to anonymous editing not to accounts

even in the Bad Old Days of using actual physical pieces of paper and encyclopaedias on PAPER we always had to use more than one source. Nothing has changed except that there are more sources available so why use just one?

(Yes I remember paper and chalk boards and spirit duplicators and actual pens (that used Ink!!) etc

Andrew

Andrew Shortell
CRC Melton

shortell at get2me.net

On 18/04/2012, at 8:53 AM, jslynn at bigpond.com wrote:

> I think Litsa's approach is the best.
> 
> I have spotted a few inaccuracies in Wikipedia over the years. I have edited enties occasionally to fix inaccuracies or simply to expand on explanations but on every attempt to do so from school, I have been blocked because the school's IP address has been blocked by Wikipedia. I would hazard a guess that many other schools would be affected this way, thereby preventing students from making spurious alterations from school - it may still be possible for them to make such changes from home.
> 
> Jeff Lynn,
> Camberwell High School
>  
> 
> On 17/04/2012 8:36 PM Litsa Tzelepis wrote:
> 
> Hello,
>  
> we had the same speaker - or at least the same example. It did get alot of the staff thinking about the possibilities.
>  
> If anything, I always ask my students to use a variety of resources when completing any kind of project. They are encouraged to remember that although Wikipedia is a great source of information, they should cross reference with other reliable sources too.
>  
> No problems here.
> Litsa :-)
>  
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Pearse, Steven S
> To: itapps at edulists.com.au
> Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 6:20 PM
> Subject: [Year 12 IT Apps] Accuracy of Wikipedia
> 
> We had the cyber-safety lecture today (from the government) regarding things that we are(or should be) aware of, so I won’t bring it up here. What did bring my attention was a story that was told that I found amusing, possible but unlikely. It goes as follows.
> A teacher asked her students to complete a research assignment on something historical on a Monday and asked the students to hand it in on Friday. In that particular class there was  a student that was very diligent, completed work on time etc etc. He finished the assignment by C+P (or using it for research) the wiki page and handing it in on the Tuesday. The student then proceeded to change the wiki page and a large amount of the students used this information to create their assignments and handed in work with bogus content. This information stayed on there until the teacher looked on Friday and the student confessed to what he had done.
> All the teachers in our staffroom laughed quite rightly, but then I started thinking – where did she hear that story from? I didn’t stop to ask, but I have my doubts about the accuracy. I also have heard my students being told by other teachers not to use Wikipedia at all as its information is not reliable. I did some snooping around (albeit briefly) and found that it has been likened to Encyclopædia Britannica in terms of accuracy. Most bogus things are found and deleted very quickly.
> Personally I have found it to be very accurate when I cross check it with other sources, and think that is it getting a lot of bad press.
> I would welcome other people’s thoughts on this matter.. Do you instruct your students to avoid Wikipedia?
> (Also – the “Wikipedia is a starting point was my advice”)
> (FYI – although I understand the irony of adding a wiki reliability page that is a Wikipedia page J )
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
> Steve Pearse
> Narre Warren P-12
> 
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