Reflections on Teaching

There seems to be waves of arguments about Wikipedia that roil through the Internet. There was one I chimed in on here on the Middlebury College ban on citing Wikipedia.

Now there has been a back and forth in Slate Magazine about Wikipedia policies. The discussion centers around the potential (since resolved) deletion of a biography of a Slate Columnist on Wikipedia.  The story is here but look down at those last few comments. Very interesting discussion of who is making decisions and how they are being made. Especially when they deal with controversy.  Caveat lector?

I think this points out that starting with Wikipedia for research is one thing, but ending with it may be another.  I’m thinking that teaching students Wikipedia literacy is definitely a good idea, and should be it’s own subset of Internet literacy. I still think there is value in Wikipedia because of the lessons you could teach based on looking at the discussions, sources, etc.