Wikipedia Smackdown!

Thursday, April 17, 10:00 - 11:50

speakers:

• Alan November
• Kathy Schrock

 

technical difficulties...

 

using Skype; Kathy is remote, but displayed on the screen

 

Kathy: anti-Wikipedia

• has only used it twice, one of which was in preparation for this session
• has difficulty using the website
• passion can lead to biased information
• how do students determine if this information is correct? do they look at past versions of the webpage? do they try to determine authority?

 

Alan: pro-Wikipedia

• yes, anyone at anytime can edit or create an article
• it's difficult to justify the masses over scholars
• however, it's not an information tool like an encyclopedia
• it's a publishing forum for when kids finish their work
• example: Pitot House (New Orleans)
  • after field trip, have third-graders create an article on it (there wasn't one)
• there is no "history" tab for the encyclopedia britannica, including dates, revisions, author names, etc.
• we're evaluating it based on the model of an old media
• but a wiki is so different than an encyclopedia, we need new standards of review
• can see the page evolve, add images, etc.
• role of the teacher: to help students evaluate
• had students evaluate the later changes on the page; were the links good? images good?
• when you type in "Pitot House," it's #1 or 2 in Google
  • the kids added value to the world

 

Katy

• wiki can be a very powerful tool, yes
• top results because of "slimy practices" by Wikipedia
• Google uses "popularity" as one of the criteria for ranking (how many times it is linked to)
• Wikipedia blocks the much-linked things (linked in Wikipedia, but external links); so this skews their search results, and thus Google's search results

 

Alan

• but Google doesn't like people messing with their search algorithms
• four aspects to their ranking:
  • if the content in the search is in the URL of any site
    • in Wikipedia, the topic is often used as the name of the page, which ends up in the URL
  • if the content is in the title of the page
    • (see above)
  • number of links
  • source code: follow tags
    • "no follow"
• but you can follow the rules and come out earlier than Wikipedia in Google results
• yes, the masses can contribute to Wikipedia at any time
• book called "Mob" about knowledged of the masses -- this actually has a value compared to that of the very, very few scholars
• results for "hula" shown to Hawaiian children
  • said that the information was incorrect--but they were able to change it
  • teaches children the responsibility of correcting the largest encyclopedia in the world
  • discussion tab: (not in Brittannica!) gives info about article, who contributed, what they thought

 

Kathy

• agree with what you said about masses correcting the content
• i don't believe that we're always getting the word from the authority on that topic
• as long as students realize that, it's okay
• a different classroom model:
  • search in authoritative sources
  • then also edit the information on Wikipedia

 

Alan

• no one believes you should only use one source (kids might)
• power of Wikipedia is when children do research elsewhere, then edit or add to Wikipedia
  • the exciting part of learning is making a contribution to society
• how do you critically evaluate an entry?
  • we used to only teach people how to read, then added writing
  • we should learn to both read and write on the internet
  • challenged doctoral students to contributing to Wikipedia: none of the students wanted to
    • convinced to keep the assignment: many of their articles were rejected because of the rigor of the editing
    • people started responding to their ideas, from all over the world
      • very useful for doctoral research
  • it's hard to "get it" unless you're a player and have added content to Wikipedia
  • RSS feed for each Wikipedia article; you can be appraised of updates

 

Kathy

• who are these editors?
• a company that is not doing it correctly

 

Alan

• how do you account for the massive popularity, languages, etc. in Wikipedia?

 

Kathy

• it's an easy-to-use format
• I just feel we need something like that which goes through a more rigorous process
• Google is working on a more authoritative competitor to Wikipedia

 

-----?

• ask.com and about.com using Wikipedia content verbatim, in case of incorrect info (up for 100 days)

 

Alan

• 3 avg. errors per Britannica article
  • but my teachers never taught me to question the encyclopedia
• avg. 4 errors per Wikipedia article
• Oxford English Dictionary invited anyone in the world to submit definitions
  • story of the Madman and the Professor
  • can still submit new words

 

Kathy

• title of Wikipedia: "the free encyclopedia"
• my problem is our students using it
• plaigirism and copyright infringements
• top search results for Wikipedia indicates the age of the people using it (GH3, etc.)

 

(but these are primarily pop culture topics, which aren't well covered outside of Wikipedia--this doesn't necessarily indicate age, nor that these same people use it for academic reasons)

 

Alan

• thinks local kids should be contributing info about their environment
• challenged her to find an inaccuracy
• political debates -- certain controversial topics cannot be edited unless you have a high Wikipedia status
• examples of controversial topics, edits made

 

----?

• perhaps Wikipedia is valuable for pop culture references?

 

Kathy

• there's still a lot of opinion included--danger of those passionate about their topic
• it's popular because it's easy to use and now easy to find things
• physically larger than a print encyclopedia could ever be
• still concerned about their business practices

 

Alan

• a good place to look for current opinions of books (type in book title)
• Wikinomics (business book)
• business around the world are using wikis to solve difficult problems
• we have the chance to teach them critical thinking, instead of telling them not to use Wikipedia at all

 

Kathy

• US Patent Office now has a similar public input forum

 

inviting questions from the audience

---

 

Q/A

 

Q: i think the prevalence of missing "edit" buttons in Wikipedia speaks to Kathy's point; bias must be a big problem. also, if users were required to type in real names, instead of internet handles, would the information possibly become more authoritative?

Alan: no

 

(see: EOL, explore, encyclopedia)

 

Q: heard you (Alan) speak before about del.icio.us to expand your professional network. i tried this with my middle school teachers, and i'm getting great feedback--sharing websites, etc.

Kathy: you can find out who reads your blog by seeing subscribers, click on their blogrolls, using people in my content group or professional group to grow my resources. you can't beat that.