Wikipedia: Guilty Pleasure or Role Model?

When I began writing this blog, Alan drew my attention to a blog called Shared Leadership by educational consultant Jamie Feild Baker. One of Baker's recent posts was a feisty defense of Wikipedia, whose detractors, she suspects, tend to be a bit old-school in their ideas about education. In fact, she feels that many of the Wikipedia features most often disparaged by teachers are in fact virtues--or at least realities of education in the 21st century.

What are some of Wikipedia's core values?

• Accessibility: Wikipedia's mission is to be free, easy to use and available in many languages.

• Transparency and Currency: Political agendas are prominently flagged and openly discussed. It is possible to track the history of every article, to read profiles of many of the contributors and to judge how each edit was received by the broader community.

• Inclusive Collaboration: Anyone can contribute to Wikipedia, at any moment, from anywhere in the world.

This last point, of course, is where we teachers often get stuck. Who are these people? Is this information reliable?

Baker suggests that engaging these questions is exactly the sort of work our students need to be doing. Limiting inquiry to neatly vetted sources may not best equip students for the fast-changing, paradigm-shifting world they are venturing into. There is bad information on Wikipedia, to be sure, and it's our job as educators to point that out.

But there's a lot to like about Wikipedia. Their Mission Statement: To empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain and to disseminate it effectively and globally.

That sounds quite compatible with our own " diverse community of people who challenge each other to learn in a healthy, creative and collaborative atmosphere. Or doesn't it? Let me know if you think this post may require cleanup.

See Jamie's blog to read her own words or to see a short-ish (20 minute) video clip of Wiki Foundation Chair Jimmy Wales. (You may need to search her blog to find the post, but it's worth it.)