Wikipedia and Its Use in Education

Wikipedia is being used by all levels of students in education. Many people wonder how this free online information service affects the subject knowledge of students.

This also raises questions about the accuracy of the information in Wikipedia, since the database of information has been placed online by the general public and not from a source such as Encyclopedia Britannica.

The reality is that Wikipedia has been accessed heavily by Internet users. Out of 100 prominent K – 12 education terms in U.S. and world history, these terms came up first 87 times and second 12 times.

This indicates that students and others are accessing this information on a regular basis, because they are very popular (Michael Petrilli, Hoover Institution of Stanford University).

I have read that Wikipedia is a good resource, because its information is fairly correct when it comes to history and some of the othet subjects.

I have even been told, along with doing a little comparison check myself, that the scientific information is fairly accurate.

This presents a challenge to education - Does education accept Wikipedia or ban it from use in schools?

Tags: wikipedia

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Comment by Mike on September 17, 2008 at 8:42am: What is accurate? Is any encyclopedia accurate? Check out one topic on several resources and see if they concur. Years ago I did a project with my elementary students. They were to choose an important figure from history and give a very brief report. Two students chose Anne Oakley. Their two different "reliable" encyclopedias had her born on different dates and in different states.

Comment by David Wetzel on September 17, 2008 at 9:05pm: This is a valid concern which leads to the accuracy of any crediable or questionable source. I do know the developer of wikipedia has apparently stated it should not be relied upon for scholarly research.

Comment by Martin Sieverding on September 18, 2008 at 8:17am: My vote would be to allow it's use but not as the only source of information. In order for any research to be accurate you would want to use a number of sources. Training students to use several sources as well as talking about how wikipedia works ( anyone contributes, show history of the page, etc.) makes the most sense to me.