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"Wikipedia can often get a bum rap from many in the education community. Sometimes, it’s for good reason, as it can be a VERY overused information source by students AND adults alike...Today I want to reflect on its benefits as a starting reference or secondary (maybe tertiary) source to start of your research, based on how I used it to research my History resource."
Beth Dichter's insight:
Many students choose to use Wikipedia as a primary resource and many teachers tell students they should not use Wikipedia...but what if you require that they confirm all information from other primary resources? Gleeson notes "I believe starting with the much maligned site had several benefits that will transfer over to the students’ use." He discusses four issues that students often face when searching online: * Where do I begin? (Based on my discussions with students most students tell me they use Google, but that does not mean that they look beyond the first page of results, or know how to do searches.) * Key word search - Do your students know how to use key words? Wikipedia may help with this. * Secondary source drives me to primary source - Allow the secondary source to provide some foundation, but confirm with primary sources. * Effective time management for checking sources. Additional information on each point may be found in the post. 
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Wikipedia's stated goal to be a neutral fact-based encyclopedia has enabled it to accumulate an incredible amount of useful information. But what happens when it is your work that you are trying to correct? And have you heard of citogenesis? An interesting article that looks at why some teachers do not believe that Wikipedia should be used in the classroom.
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"Within the classroom, Wikipedia has long been synonymous with words like “untrustworthy,” “fallacious,” and “non-academic.” However, recently I noticed many of my own university professors opening up to the idea of using the resource to double-check facts, and I began seeing it cited more frequently in academic papers, which made me wonder – is Wikipedia improving its image in academia?"
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![Encyclopedia Britannica vs. Wikipedia [INFOGRAPHIC] | Eclectic Technology | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/dZfXWN0w1z2m0cgstuAi7Dl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
How does the Encyclopedia Britannica compare to Wikipedia in terms of scale, funding and editorial capacity. This graphic breaks it down.
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Wiki Summarizer will summarize Wikipedia articles and the Wikipedia Knowledge Base. You may choose to see a Visual Summary, a Tree View, or a Keyword Cloud. The Visual Summary and Tree View may be seen as key points or with more detailed information. These items may be saved as rtf or html files. To print the Keyword Cloud you would need a program such as Awesome Screenshot. This tool would assist many students who struggle to determine key vocabulary and concepts.
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A look at how Wikipedia is "misunderstood because many educators have yet to recognize the distinction between Wikipedia as a tool for teaching and Wikipedia as a tool for research." Why use Wikipedia? This post suggests that the collaboration that takes place provides a number of incentives including (quoted from post): * Similar benefits to traditional writing assignments. * Digital literacy training. * Multi-layered feedback. The post also looks at using Wikipedia as a tool for research. This portion of the post is a response to some of the arguments made by Brian Proffitt's post that "recommended against Wikipedia's use in the classroom." The response suggests that the use of Wikipedia teaches one information literacy. More information may be found in the post.
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"The crowd-sourced site Wikipedia has long been bemoaned by the academic community as an unreliable source for student research. Some educators, however, have embraced the site—not only for pointing students in the direction of quality information, but also for teaching information literacy skills." This article recommends you discuss/define terms such as crowd-sourced, open source, citation, plagiarism and more (and provides a link to an article '7 Things You Should Know About Wikis.' The article then recommends steps students should take as they explore Wikipedia for articles, in other words, use media literacy/information literacy skills as you would with any website when using Wikipedia. This is a great source to help you think about how to teach skills to your students.
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"Mapping Wikipedia is a groundbreaking visualisation of the world mapped according to articles in 7 different languages. The map displays both the global patterns and the vast number of geo-located items. The dataset was produced by the Oxford Internet Institute as part of a project that examines Wikipedia in the Middle East and North Africa. For more information contact Gavin Baily or Mark Graham." "To further explore the geography of the data, each Wikipedia article is associated with various attributes, such as word count, number of authors, and number of images etc. You can investigate these using the ‘map’ dropdown." Additional examples are available on the website.
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It took Wikipedia less than a decade to take down its traditional predecessor, the Encyclopædia Britannica, a series that has helped scholars and students for nearly two and a half decades. While most consider this to be a natural transition wit ... This article includes a graphic about Wikipedia that explores how it has redefined research.
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Many students choose to use Wikipedia as a primary resource and many teachers tell students they should not use Wikipedia...but what if you require that they confirm all information from other primary resources? Gleeson notes "I believe starting with the much maligned site had several benefits that will transfer over to the students’ use."
He discusses four issues that students often face when searching online:
* Where do I begin? (Based on my discussions with students most students tell me they use Google, but that does not mean that they look beyond the first page of results, or know how to do searches.)
* Key word search - Do your students know how to use key words? Wikipedia may help with this.
* Secondary source drives me to primary source - Allow the secondary source to provide some foundation, but confirm with primary sources.
* Effective time management for checking sources.
Additional information on each point may be found in the post.