I will be the first to admit that if I want knowledge about a particular event in history, Wikipedia is the first place I look. I often find myself looking to Wikipedia to expand on or clarify some question I may have about a historical event. I was recently watching The Perfect Storm on TV, and wanted to read a bit more about the event, and clarify a few things I saw in the movie. Wikipedia is convenient, easily accessible, and I believe most of it is accurate. In college, we are all warned about using Wikipedia, especially when writing a paper, or conducting research. I would never cite Wikipedia as a source of information 1) because it is hard to tell where exactly the information came from, and 2) I would not be 100 percent sure the information was accurate. However, if you think about it....how do we know that anything is 100 percent accurate unless we witnessed it ourselves. History is constantly changing, and being reviewed and revised by people who have discovered some new piece of the puzzle. In the Sheets article, he mentions a book titled, Telling the Truth About History. I had to read this book in a Historical Methods class at ETSU. I actually enjoyed the book, because it helped me understand a bit more about how we write about history, and how it is a collaborative effort. I think history is a story told from many different perspectives, and we have to keep that in mind we we view Wikipedia, or any other source from that matter. I believe Wikipedia can be very useful in the social studies classroom, and I think it should be used to help students understand how historians go about writing the histories that we are reading in our history classes. There are some downfalls to using Wikipedia for information, for example, Rosenzweig warns that Wikipedia is open source, and information can be added or deleted by anyone. This can be very problematic, and could provide completely false information. However, one positive aspect of this is that it becomes a collaborative effort. Many different people can come in and add or edit information to provide a more accurate telling of the story. Wikipedia allows students to easily explore an interest, and it also provides references for further exploring. It can also point students to other related events or people, and it can really help students gain a full understanding of an event. Ryle and Snowdon's article, I believe, gives Wikipedia credit for helping students understand the "how" and not just the "that". It allows students to see how historians go about compiling information, and forming their research into a coherent story. It allows the to see how they get to the "that". I think knowledge is more than just facts, I believe it is how we organize those facts to understand the deeper meaning of an event. Knowledge is the "how" that comes from the "that". Meaning knowledge is how we organize all of the information in a way that we can recall this information and apply it to different situations.
My policy on using wikipedia in the classroom will be this: only use wikipedia as a means of located other sources of information, and never directly cite wikipedia as a source in any work. I think wikipedia can serve as a good stepping stone to other, better sources of information, such as newspaper articles or government documents. However, I think that it is too dangerous to allow students to use wikipedia as a source for any paper or project. Not to mention, I think it will do them a disservice when they reach the college level and are told never to use wikipedia as a source. I do, however, think that wikipedia can be a good way to show students how collaboration in history works. Much of the history we know has been edited and added to over time. New information is discovered, theories are overturned, and facts are further supported. A creative way to use wikipedia in the classroom would be to have students work together on a paper, or project and have students proofread and edit each others work. First, I would provide the students with some background information on wikipedia and how it works, as well as give them the specifics of how I want them to collaborate on their assignment. I will specify how many times the work should be edited by other group members, and how to address areas of disagreement. I think this will be a good way to teach students to collaborate, as well as give them a taste of what other historians do everyday. I think as part of the assignment I would also have them describe their process and their feelings on collaborating, such as what was easy or what was difficult about it. I think this will really get them to think more critically about where they get information, and will cause them to look more critically at open-source information, such as wikipedia.
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