Wikipedia- to use or not to use in the library or classroom?

Coming at this as a former classroom teacher, I have been asked about my thoughts on the use of Wikipedia in the classroom before. My answer is not a straightforward one. I have always said- yes, with provisions- which I will discuss further here. Mainly, Wikipedia can be used to help students learn more about information validity in their quest for better information literacy and Wikipedia can be a great starting point for students wanting to learn more about a specific topic.

In an age when anyone can post, blog, or comment just about anything, it's important to help students understand where the information posted comes from and how to analyze this for themselves. One phenomenon that has come out of this time where information can and does travel faster than it ever has before is something called "circular reporting" in which a piece of false news can be spread and then picked up by others or be reported on by multiple sources thus making it appear to be more valid (Tavlin, 2015). By the same token, "user generated content such as those found on Wikis are also a common contributor to circular reporting" and "an unverified fact in a Wiki page" can be cited and used in other works as users turn to these sites more and more for quick answers to their information needs (Tavlin, 2015). So something doesn't need to be true to be posted and reposted again and again. This lead me to a great series of Ted Talks on teaching information literacy and digital awareness.

The quote that had the biggest impact for me from Noah Tavlin's Ted Talk "How False News Can Spread" was "our desire for quick answers may overpower the desire to be certain of their validity and when this bias can be multiplied by billions of people around the world nearly instantaneously, more caution is in order" (2015). This caution is the kind of thinking and critical eye we want to instill in students seeking information and wanting to use Wikipedia. We want to encourage students in the classroom and the library to seek out the original source of any content they find but especially content found online. Showing students that Wikipedia entries are written by various contributors called "Wikipedians" is a good starting point for helping to develop a more critical eye. Not many students actually realize that Wikipedia is considered a crowd sourced site and while Wikipedia generally works to make sure their information is as valid as possible, there are ways that misinformation can be presented. I have used this as a lesson with my fourth graders by showing that I could alter or edit a Wikipedia article very easily (without actually posting the false changes that I made) just so they could see that anyone else could do the same and that such people are actually called vandals. This kind of critical thinking and an eye out for false news is an important one to demonstrate for student and Wikipedia can be one of the instructional vehicles used.

Teaching students to find and analyze information critically is not the only use for Wikipedia, though. I have told students before that there is nothing wrong with using Wikipedia as a starting point. It should not, however, be seen as a "one-stop shop for all their information needs" (Jennings, 2008, p.433). Showing students the anatomy of a Wikipedia entry including but not limited to the sections titled: References, Bibliography, Further Reading, and External Links, can help students with a starting point for finding more information and determining the validity of the content displayed. Wikipedia is great as just that: a starting point. Wikipedia has an entire page devoted to problems with citing their site and how it may not be accepted as a valid resource. This should definitely be explored with students. Telling students use [Wikipedia] "like any other encyclopedia: use it for background and references (with maybe some extra care) but generally avoid quoting from it" (Houtman, 2013) is one of the ways to help them develop strong information literacy as long as we further explain WHY.

In closing, Wikipedia should be used with students to better their information literacy and be taught to approach its entries with caution, a critical eye, and a desire to determine the validity of information presented there.

References:

Brown, D. (2014, Jun 5). How to choose your news [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/q-Y-z6HmRgI

Houtman, E. (2013, Nov 6). New literacies, learning, and libraries: How can frameworks from other fields help us think about the issues? [Blog post]. Retrieved from: http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2013/new-literacies-learning-and-libraries-how-can-frameworks-from-other-fields-help-us-think-about-the-issues/

Jennings, E. (2008). Using Wikipedia to teach information literacy. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 15(4), 432-437.

Tavlin, N. (2015, Aug 27). How false news can spread [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/cSKGa_7XJkg.

Wikipedia. (2017, Oct 16). Wikipedia: Citing Wikipedia. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia