Q:From an educational perspective (as a both a current student and a future teacher) is Wikipedia a blessing or a burden? As a future teacher, what would you tell your future students about Wikipedia's role in education?
A: I think when debating this topic you have to ask yourself "How reliable is the information I get on other internet sites that are not Wikipedia?" I did a project my junior year about stomach pH and its effects on the dissolving of different pills. I went to a lot of different websites to find out what the pH of the average stomach was and I found a huge range of answers. I was pretty amazed because all of these websites seemed pretty legitimate and none of their information was the same. I began to think about the accuracy of the information you get on the internet and when you think about it anyone can make a website, post facts, and seem like a reliable source when really its not. I'm not saying that every website doesnt have correct information because alot of them do but you have to remember that ANYONE can post pretty much whatever they on the internet. Wikipedia however is a website that combines information of alot of people from around the world into one website. Yes I am aware that people joke on it and that things aren't always 100% accurate but alot of things are the internet are not totally accurate. When you compare wikipedia to a encyclopedia, wikipedia will obviously not have the accuracy that an encyclopedia has but it will have more terms with a collaboration of opinions. However when you compare wikipedia to a random website chances are wikipedia is just as if not more accurate and it is a pretty good reference when you want to know basic information on a random topic.
I think I would tell my students that wikipedia is a good source to start out with but not to use it as your number one source. I personally would require my students to use outside resources that aren't websites when it comes to research so using wikipedia as their internet source would not bother me. I would make sure students know that wikipedia doesnt always have 100% accurate information so it's important that they look at other sources. I would definitly let my students use wikipedia for a starting reference as long as they had other references to use as well
