• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts

The Educators Room logo

  • Start Here
    • Impact Statements: Teacher Expertise
    • Newsletter
  • Browse Topics
    • Content Strategies
      • Literacy
      • Mathematics
      • Social Studies
      • Educational Technology
      • ELL & ESOL
      • Fine Arts
      • Special Education
      • Popular Topics
        • Teacher Self-Care
        • Instructional Coach Files
        • Common Core
        • The Traveling Teacher
        • The Unemployed Teacher
        • The New Teacher Chronicles
        • Book Review
        • Grade Levels
          • Elementary (K-5)
          • Middle (6-8)
          • Adult
          • New Teacher Bootcamp
          • Hot Button Topics
            • Menu Item
              • Principals' Corner
              • Charter Schools
              • Confessions of a Teacher
              • Interviews
              • The State of Education
              • Stellar Educator of the Week
            • Menu
              • How to Fix Education
              • Featured
              • Ask a Teacher
              • Teacher Branding
              • Current Events
  • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout- An 8 Week Course
    • Becoming An Educational Consultant
    • Teacher Branding 101:Teachers are The Experts
    • The Learning Academy
    • Books
    • Shirts
  • Education in Atlanta
  • Teacher Self-Care
  • The Coach's Academy
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts
×

November 7, 2014 Featured

Wiki-What? 10 Reasons It’s Time for Teachers to Embrace Wikipedia

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Jake Miller

Mr. Jake Miller is the 2016 National History Day Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year, a 2017 NEA Global Fellow to China, and a former candidate for county-wide office. Miller has written more than 500 articles, most of which have appeared on The Educator's Room. He's the opening contributor to TER's book When the Fire Is Gone. Learn more about Jake at www.MrJakeMiller.com
  • The Student-Teaching Model Is Outdated: Here's How We Can Do Better - September 15, 2021
  • Visualize: How Seeing What's Coming Changed My Teaching - August 16, 2021
  • 10 Lessons About Teaching from My Youngest Son - June 24, 2021
  • Ending the Epithet “Try-Hard” Once and for All in Classrooms - June 18, 2021
  • From STEM, Let's Pivot to the BRANCHES of the Humanities - May 25, 2021
  • Would Education Collapse If Teachers Stopped Working for Free? - May 20, 2021
  • 10 Ways to Teach Like Ted Lasso: Part II - April 21, 2021
  • 8 Tips So Your Substitute Plans Don't Suck - April 14, 2021
  • 10 Ways to Teach Like Ted Lasso: Part I - March 12, 2021
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers: Habit 3 - First Things First - February 26, 2021

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"]

Wikipedia Logo

Wikipedia Logo

My neighbor teacher and I have this roundabout every year. She, the English teacher, doesn’t permit students to use Wikipedia, and the debate ensues not long after she brings up the fact that she does not allow students to use something “so unreliable.” In fact, she’s like a huge majority of teachers who don’t limit the usage of a grassroots-fed compilation of sources like Wikipedia.

It’s time to put that thinking in the dust and embrace Wikipedia as a legitimate resource for students to use for the following reasons:

At the very least, Wikipedia provides a great place to start researching. Seriously, look at just about any entry on the webpage, and you’re bound to learn something. Similarly, if you have trouble getting over the dependability of the entry, scroll to the bottom and you’ll typically see multiple sources (many clickable to examine) and also that the words were vetted by multiple authors.

Wikipedia provides the best up-to-the-minute information on pressing topics. As the world is gripped in fear and anticipation over Ebola, it’s almost without question that Wikipedia has become the most reliable source for what’s happening in Western Africa and in other remote occurrences of the outbreak throughout the globe.

Wikipedia has shown itself to be as reliable as printed encyclopedias. As early as 2005, Wikipedia was as trustworthy as the Encyclopedia Britannica. It’s only improved in framing the scope of information in the last 9 years.

Printed encyclopedias are a thing of the past. Let’s face it, these kids aren’t going to go to their bookshelf to flip through the “W” encyclopedia to find George Washington when they can…

Use websites as a tool of the future. Ask any student to find information, and they’re going to use the Internet. Better that we direct them to look for George Washington on Wikipedia than to expect they’ll avoid searching for him on Yahoo! Answers (which, here, says he was the “president of poop.”) Many teachers fear that Wikipedia is Yahoo! Answers. It is not.

Writing and editing articles can serve as an incredible learning experience. In 2004, I saw that my college (Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania) was lacking an entry. As a proud Husky (and junior at the time), I thoroughly researched our university’s history during the summer and then made the entry live. As a “thank you,” the college offered me a scholarship after seeing the prodigiousness of my work without me even asking for compensation.

It’s the 6th most widely used website. In fact, when using the most used website (Google) to find out the most used websites, it’s number 1 hit is – you guessed it – a Wikipedia entry.

Group discussion, dialogue, and preservation can help frame the historical context and continue the conversation. Vanderbilt University, for example, hosts edit-a-thons to clean-up misrepresented, trolled entries. If students find something akin to a Yahoo! Answers post, what better way for them to improve history than to work to improve it themselves?

Wikipedia is exemplary of the grassroots, global initiatives that are changing the face of education. It’s great to see the multiple perspectives of things from a variety of views. For example, when I teach about the American Revolution, I ask students to scrutinize it through the lens of the British. The way they do that is by clicking their way through King George III on Wikipedia.

Let’s stop lying to students – teachers use it, too! When the Arab Spring was erupting in December of 2010, I was teaching about the Middle East for the first time in my career. I was engulfed by students’ questions, and to give them the feedback they needed, I turned to Wikipedia. I’m not ashamed to say that I learned more about that event at that time and still do from Wikipedia’s entry.

 

So, come next week, I’m going to print this article out and hand it to my neighbor teacher. But only after she agrees that it becomes a Wikipedia entry.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

The STEM Revolution in Higher Education Making STEM Matter in Schools "White Hat" and "Black Hat" Reformers Default ThumbnailEliminate Extra Credit!
« The Importance of Solidifying Basic Math Facts
Bringing Writing Back: The SRSD Technique »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

The Educator's Room was launched in 2012 to amplify the voice of educators. To date, we have over 45+ writers from around the world and boast over twelve million page views. Through articles, events, and social media we will advocate for honest dialogue with teachers about how to improve public education. This mission is especially important when reporting on education in our community; therefore, we commit our readers to integrity, accuracy, and independence in education reporting. To join our mailing list, click here.

What we do

At The Educator's Room, we focus on amplifying and honoring the voice of educators as experts in education. To date, we have over 40 staff writers/teachers from around the world.

Popular Posts

  • Ask The Educator's Room: I'm dating a student's dad. Should we tell the school?
  • My Union Showed Up for Me, and I'll Never Forget It
  • Your Students Deserve a Diverse Classroom Library. Here's How to Set It Up.
  • You Don't Have to Watch the Tyre Nichols Video, But Be Ready to Talk About It

Featured On

Buy Our Books/Courses

How to Leave Your Job in Education

Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout

Using Your Teacher Expertise to Become an Educational Consultant

Check out our books on teaching and learning!

The Learning Academy

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility Policy

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact
  • Services
  • Media Kit
  • FAQ

 

Copyright © 2021 The Educator's Room.