Sunday, February 23, 2014

wikipedia and you tube

        I haven’t yet had the opportunity to have my own class to say what they can and cannot use for a reference, but I would consider letting them use Wikipedia dependent on the age of the student and the extent of the assignment.  If it were a middle elementary class and they were researching animal habitats, yes Wikipedia would be all right.  I would probably let them know that it is a public site that anyone can publish on and to be careful of some info.  If it were upper elementary I might allow Wikipedia as one reference but another would be required as well.  Once students are in middle or high school Wikipedia could be a starting place, perhaps using some of the references sited to look further.  In high school definitely the students would have to have acknowledge references.  

          I think the same would apply to YouTube.  It could be used for a starting point but additional references should also be looked at.

4 comments:

  1. Hi Barbara. I agree that our posts are very similar. When I was doing my student teaching I would find short YouTube videos that related to the topics we were discussing and show them. My cooperating teacher also didn't mind if the students used Wikipedia as a starting point when they were looking up things for a paper.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies



    1. Barbara HinkleyMarch 3, 2014 at 6:05 PM

      and then just today the LA teachers I work with used You Tube in their classes, to show videos of songs, with ppt talking about the different literary devices, we started poetry today. So teachers using yes, kids having access at school, still a no.

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. Hi Barbara,

      I love the fact that you said you would allow your students to use Wikepedia as a source for information. Generally, as I've learned from my very own teachers that Wikepedia is technically not "reliable" or reputable if you will. But more and more, I've become open to the idea of this. Wikipedia definitely has a lot of key information that as teachers we might not even explore simply because we might believe in the more traditional aspects of learning developement. For example, we've become so accustomed to the idea of .edu and other sites that we sometimes don't allow for neutrality in this area.

      Delete