Prompt #8

I will be discussing issue #7, which is the use of Wikipedia. When I was in middle and high school, we were strongly discouraged from using the site Wikipedia. Our teachers strongly pushed that although Wikipedia may seem like a decent and credible source to use, it was not. My high school even blocked the website all together in an attempt to get the students to stop using it. The truth of the matter is once you block a website and tell students they are forbidden from using it, they are more likely to test the limits and use it. In my personal opinion, I think Wikipedia should be seen as more of a friend than as a foe. While I do agree that a lot of the information provided on there is written by sources that have no credibility, I also think that Wikipedia provides a great outlet for students to get a general idea of certain topics. When researching a potential topic for a research paper, students can look to Wikipedia to get a general idea of what they might want to research further. Should the students be taking information from Wikipedia and using it as a source in their research paper? This probably is not the best idea. Wikipedia is a great starting point for students who are a little lost or just cannot decide on a topic. Since Wikipedia is available for editing by anyone, which usually consists of people without any credibility, a lot of opinions are inserted within articles. Students reading articles on Wikipedia could have the opportunity to oppose the thoughts and opinions of certain contributors. This gives students the opportunity to think outside of the box and contradict a contributor’s thoughts. For these reasons, I do not think Wikipedia should be banned from student use. Instead, I think teachers should just advise students on how to use Wikipedia to their benefit and make sure they understand that some of the information is unreliable.