Why Wikipedia Should Be Allowed in Schools
By Pedro Torres
Wikipedia is used by everyone. It is the 7th most used site in the world, with an average of around 800 million views per month (as of March 2016). The site has what is one of, if not THE largest database of information available to mankind. Yet, in most schools across the country, it’s not allowed to be used for research in an essay or project. Why? Many teachers claim that Wikipedia is “unreliable and factually incorrect”. Since anyone can edit any page on Wikipedia, every page is bound to be incorrect, right? While what teachers claim is true to an extent, what they don’t know is that they and their students could be missing out on not just a valuable resource, but also what could be a valuable learning lesson along with it. Here are three reasons why Wikipedia should be allowed in schools.
One reason could be …show more content…
Articles on the site have citations. Not just one or two, but dozens of them per page. This is where a good opportunity for a lesson arises. A good way to allow Wikipedia in schools is to teach students citing and looking for multiple sources. Since Wikipedia is not only just a source for information, but a collection of sources for information, students working on an assignment will have plenty of sources of info to base their work on. What Wikipedia really is is a combination of sources of information put together in an easy to use, easy to understand format. And since that information is backed up with plenty of sources as evidence, it seems like a missed opportunity to not use Wikipedia. If students will back their information up with various sources along with Wikipedia, the site could be and should be allowed as a resource. Students shouldn’t base their work entirely on Wikipedia, but instead use it as a starting point as a source of information and a source for various other sources with even more
By Pedro Torres
Wikipedia is used by everyone. It is the 7th most used site in the world, with an average of around 800 million views per month (as of March 2016). The site has what is one of, if not THE largest database of information available to mankind. Yet, in most schools across the country, it’s not allowed to be used for research in an essay or project. Why? Many teachers claim that Wikipedia is “unreliable and factually incorrect”. Since anyone can edit any page on Wikipedia, every page is bound to be incorrect, right? While what teachers claim is true to an extent, what they don’t know is that they and their students could be missing out on not just a valuable resource, but also what could be a valuable learning lesson along with it. Here are three reasons why Wikipedia should be allowed in schools.
One reason could be …show more content…
Articles on the site have citations. Not just one or two, but dozens of them per page. This is where a good opportunity for a lesson arises. A good way to allow Wikipedia in schools is to teach students citing and looking for multiple sources. Since Wikipedia is not only just a source for information, but a collection of sources for information, students working on an assignment will have plenty of sources of info to base their work on. What Wikipedia really is is a combination of sources of information put together in an easy to use, easy to understand format. And since that information is backed up with plenty of sources as evidence, it seems like a missed opportunity to not use Wikipedia. If students will back their information up with various sources along with Wikipedia, the site could be and should be allowed as a resource. Students shouldn’t base their work entirely on Wikipedia, but instead use it as a starting point as a source of information and a source for various other sources with even more