WIKIPEDIA!!! The bane of my existence! I spend over $20,000.00 for online databases for our students to use for research and what do they do? Go to WIKIPEDIA!!!!!! And some of the teachers let them!!!!
Now that I’ve had my rant…..
I work closely with the department heads and teachers every year to determine what online resources the school needs to support the 6th-12th grade curriculum. Many teachers and principals are “all about online” while others are still focusing on the traditional “look-it-up-in-a-book” mode. I’ve had to tread the fine line between spending money on both print and online resources, and have ensured that we have both online databases and electronic books for our online sources. Our 5th-12th grade students will all have laptops next year and the school is putting a focus on “at your fingertip” learning.
I buy good online resources. I tell the teachers about them. I train the students on them at the beginning of the year. I encourage the teachers to encourage the students to use them. I still see WIKIPEDIA!!!!!
So that being said I still believe that wiki spaces are a great collaborative tool for learning and sharing. It certainly will cut down on the number of students needing to make copies on the copy machine in the library! Note sharing here we come! Vicki Davis’ blog was hilarious, especially the visual of the girls squealing in the hallway. I think Wikis are great as long as the students understand THAT SOME TYPES OF WIKIS CAN BE CHANGED BY ANYONE AT ANYTIME!! Such as, you guessed it, WIKIPEDIA!!! Teachers need to ensure that students understand what wikis are valid for research and contain valid information to use for citations in English, History, etc. papers.
I reviewed some really good wikis. My favorite is the GO WEST wiki that includes a very organized, detailed yet simple site about the Oregon Trail. The visuals were supportive, the navigation was easy, and the simplicity of the site made it a pleasure to review. I also reviewed CODE BLUE which included definitions of terms and visuals of medical items. Last I looked at KINDERGARTEN COUNTING which included pictures of items where the students were using the items to count from 1-100. Really cute and definately relative to the age group considering that the items were kindergarten related (snacks, scissors, etc).
My thoughts about some of the sites are that they are not very organized. The organized site that I looked at (GO WEST) made the perusing of the sight much more beneficial in terms of nagivation and use.
For my library I would like to create a wiki space on how to use our online resource tools (databases and electronic books) and keep the kids OFF OF WIKIPEDIA!!!!
