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I teach students what wikis are by sharing Wikipedia. We discuss how people can edit it, and how quickly false information may be removed, but I stress that it is important to verify information elsewhere (often through resources found at the bottom of the Wikipedia article), and perhaps to visit the article again on another day to see if anything has changed. There are great resources cited for most of the articles, and it's a quick way to gather information. Generally, Wikipedia has articles on VERY recent events, with citations, and AGAIN, I make sure that students verify the information, particularly if it is used for something other than just general curiosity. I wonder if Texas teachers will provide as much guidance and share as many warnings for the new history textbooks as many teachers do with Wikipedia.... > From: Art Wolinsky <awolinsky@3dwriting.com> > > > If Wikipedia would police itself, it would be a good place to practice >> critical thinking and evaluation of resources. The CIPA issues and local >> values that relate to it are still a major stumbling block. >> > > My experience is that Wikipedia does police itself quite well. Of course > with the sheer volume of editing going on, there are going to be things that > are inaccurate or slip through the cracks, but if my teachers provided as > much guidance and oversight of my work as the Wikipedia editors and > community do, I would have nothing but praise for them. > > I edited an article about two years ago and within 15 minutes of posting, > it was taken down because of alleged copyright violations. After writing to > the editor explaining that I had permission from the organization to post > the material, I had to produce proof in the form of an email from the > executive director. It took three days of back and forth to get it approved > for posting. Then once it was posted, I got nailed to that wall by the rest > of the community for inadequate citations and bias. The perception that some > people have that Wikipedia is free for all, where anyone can change anything > is about as accurate as the perception that some people have of the predator > situation. Both perceptions were created by the same media that > sensationalized Internet predators. If I want unbiased reporting, I'll take > Wikipedia any day over Fox News. > > Wikipedia also has a large amount of text based encyclopedic information > about sex and it's understandable that community standards might come into > play in blocking the site, but no way is access to Wikipedia going to be a > CIPA violation. CIPA only requires technology be used to protection against > pornographic images. What's interesting is that CIPA does not require > technology implementation to block pornographic text. > > The only controversy that I am aware of when it comes to Wikipedia and > pornography, deals with two incidents, which would understandably make some > people nervous. The first was comments by Erik Möller, Wikimedia's deputy > director, that non violent child pornography was not dangerous. There was > also an article that printed a picture of a 1976 Scorpions album cover that > contained a image of a nude under aged girl. That page got blocked by > British ISPs and made news around the world. Of course, that had the effect > of being "Banned in Boston", and it resulted in dozens of articles and the > reposting of the image on many other sites. The attempt to "protect" people > from the image resulted in thousand of people seeing it who would never have > laid eyes on it. Of course no one seemed to block Amazon for selling the > album and posting the picture. If you do a search for the album under > Google images, you will find hundreds of sites that house the image. > > Oh, did I mention that I did the search with the Google search browser set > to Strictly Filter for Text and Images? Hmmmm... > > Art > > > Art Wolinsky > OEO 3DWriting.com > Technology Director - Online Internet Institute > Educational Technology Director - WiredSafety.org > awolinsky@3dwriting.com > (609) 618-4433 > > I am perfectly capable of learning from my mistakes. > I will surely learn a great deal today. > --- Edtech Archives, posting guidelines and other information are at: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~edweb Please include your name, email address, and school or professional affiliation in each posting. To unsubscribe send the following command to: LISTSERV@H-NET.MSU.EDU SIGNOFF EDTECH
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