A Call for Wikipedia in the Classroom Mark Kissling
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Social Education 75(2), pp 60–64 ©2011 National Council for the Social Studies A Call for Wikipedia in the Classroom Mark Kissling ot long ago, I made a list of ten topics that I have taught in my social studies tion. Sometimes a question arose while classes: John Brown, atomic bomb, supply and demand, Gandhi, World Cup, reading; sometimes, while preparing a NCambodian Genocide, XYZ affair, Jane Addams, geography, and checks and lesson; sometimes my students referenced balances. Then, using Google, I searched for each term. What I found was not surpris- people, objects, or trends in popular ing: a Wikipedia website was the first link listed for eight of the ten searches.1 culture with whom or which I was not familiar. Wikipedia was a fast and easy As teachers and students increasingly and uses of Wikipedia, I describe one way to find out just a bit more. dwell in a digital world, Wikipedia is central purpose I have in teaching with it: I ran into problems, though, when a powerful presence. To what degree, teaching about knowledge construction. I my high school students started citing though, do we recognize and teach about conclude by briefly expanding my focus Wikipedia in their various research proj- Wikipedia in our classrooms? To what to think about how teaching with a wiki ects. Didn’t they know that the informa- degree do we discuss Wikipedia with our can enhance my purpose for teaching tion presented there could be posted by students (aside from declaring that we with Wikipedia. anyone? I had taught a number of les- do not want it cited as a source)? While sons throughout the school year about it is wise to plan and teach cautiously “No Wikipedia!”… “Do not cite perspective and bias in textbooks and with respect to Wikipedia, I believe that Wikipedia!” other resources. I had stressed the need to teachers need to acknowledge its strong- On its “About Wikipedia” page, critique, or “critically read,” all informa- hold in our students’ lives (and in our own Wikipedia is described as “a multilingual, tional texts; that is, to consider who cre- lives) and teach correspondingly. That web-based, free-content encyclopedia ated a text, when, where, how, and why. is, social studies teachers must provide project based on an openly editable We had analyzed primary and secondary opportunities for their students to learn model.”3 Founded in 2001, Wikipedia sources to better understand the motiva- to critically read Wikipedia, while at the is accessible in over 50 languages, is solely tion behind the creation and use (or re- same time helping them understand how online, and is free. The “pedia” of its creation) of texts like the Declaration of it is created, how it defines and positions name refers to an extensive network of Independence or Bartolomé de Las Casas’ knowledge, and what it makes possible websites, each related to a specific topic writings about life in the Americas during and fails to do. Creating experiences (and the equivalent of one encyclopedia Spanish conquests. I was concerned that like these—that “provide for the study entry). Although there is a fundamental students were blindly using the ideas of of relationships among science, technol- structure to Wikipedia—some users have unknown others, whose authorship could ogy, and society” (NCSS Curricular Theme special permissions as “administrators,” not be investigated and whose informa- )—is central to our mission.2 In this “bureaucrats,” and “stewards”—anyone tion could not be verified immediately article, I take up my initial experiences with Internet access can contribute, even (if ever). On top of this, I felt that they with Wikipedia, describing how I came anonymously, to its content.4 This online were using Wikipedia because it was to embrace it in my classroom. I consider openness to the public, and pliability simply the easiest thing to do. Like my how the attention devoted to Wikipedia by the public, is what makes Wikipedia searches to learn about what is unfamiliar in the pages of Social Education has pre- a “wiki.” to me, my students could find out plenty sented a mixed message of trouble and I first began using Wikipedia about six of information (accurate or not) in a mat- usefulness. In examining both troubles years ago when I wanted quick informa- ter of seconds. Social Education 60 I began to write into assignments and “The defining principle that anyone can anyone with Internet access can create rubrics a requirement that stipulated edit its contents … does, I think, limit an account with Wikipedia and imme- “no Wikipedia!” But over time, espe- its usefulness to students who are not diately begin editing entries.12 This, cially as students pushed back on my experts in the fields covered and very Andrew Keen argues, leads to a “cult demand, I altered this requirement to well might not recognize a mistake.”8 of the amateur,” a situation in which the “do not cite Wikipedia!” My message was In subsequent articles, Risinger echoed knowledge of experts is cast aside by the that Wikipedia might be a good start- this concern.9 However, more recently, sometimes-unfounded assertions of a ing place—in fact, it is a great starting Risinger has stated that he has begun to mob of non-experts.13 What results, the place—but it is not a good ending place. view Wikipedia more positively.10 thinking goes, is a fertile landscape for What I did not consider much at that Despite Wikipedia’s commonplace the spread of misinformation, and Keen time, is the way in which a Wikipedia status among Internet users,11 there has documents several sizable examples of entry is constructed and how it could not been an article in Social Education this problem. be used for teaching about knowledge explicitly devoted to teaching about or Jaron Lanier argues that Wikipedia construction, historiography, bias, and with Wikipedia. Therefore, what has does more than spread misinformation. other important social studies ideas. been printed in the journal amounts to Credited with coining the term “virtual a mixed message: Wikipedia is a poten- reality” in the 1980s, Lanier recently Wikipedia in Social Education tially troubling, potentially useful teach- published You Are Not A Gadget, a book Each April since 1997 and, before ing resource. I agree on both accounts; critical of the impact of “Web 2.0” tech- that, periodically since 1983, Social however, these are great reasons for nology like Wikipedia.14 Although Lanier Education has published technology- social studies teachers to teach about is a champion of technology, he does not themed issues for social studies teaching. Wikipedia. endorse it at the cost of dehumanizing A survey of all of these issues up through people, that which he sees Wikipedia 2005 concluded that “these articles … Wikipedia’s Troubles doing. For Lanier, Wikipedia detaches reflect the larger trends in social studies As has been noted in Social Education authors from their texts, creating an illu- education towards a changing role of the and many other publishing outlets, sion that the text “mash-up” is true and, teacher and learner, one that depends on constructivism and student-centered learning.”5 Recognizing the turn toward technology in the teaching of social studies (and everyday living), this now- ECHOES and REFLECTIONS annual focus has been quite helpful to A Multimedia Curriculum on the Holocaust my teaching. However, despite numer- ous articles on a variety of technologies and technological uses, Wikipedia has Meet State Standards With Award-Winning received limited attention in this journal. Multimedia Curriculum Given its ubiquity, I wonder why? The first mention of “the free ency- ECHOES AND REFLECTIONS INCLUDES: clopedia” in Social Education was in 2005 with the suggestion that “teach- Ten lessons supported by literature ers and students will find answers (and excerpts, poetry, photographs, student handouts, and journal assignments. more questions) on just about any topic in the universe.”6 Since then, Wikipedia Over two hours of eyewitness testimony. has surfaced mostly in the form of use- ful teaching website links provided by Connections to contemporary issues of C. Frederick Risinger (in his “Surfing cultural diversity, intolerance, and genocide. the Net” column) or as supplementary resource links in connection to arti- BUY NOW FOR THE SPECIAL PRICE OF $59.99 cles.7 Enter Promo Code: SE2011 In response to one of Risinger’s Wikipedia link suggestions, a letter to www.echoesandreflections.org [email protected] the editor questioned the appropriate- ness of Wikipedia as a resource in a secondary classroom. The author wrote, SocialEducation_Ad_4.75x4.75_1.24.11_v1.inddMarch/April 2011 1 1/24/11 5:07 PM 61 thus, uncontestable. With its commitment or when it conflicts with other knowledge? I describe at the onset of this article) to “neutral point of view,” Lanier asserts How does it relate to power and who that they have studied in school. that “Wikipedia seeks to erase point of benefits/suffers from this relationship? Next, they can search online for the view entirely.”15 The primary founder of Wikipedia, topics, noting the large presence of The warnings about Wikipedia from Jimmy Wales, asserts that Wikipedia is Wikipedia.17 Keen, Lanier, and others are not easily dis- an enterprise for bringing together the missed. And for this very reason, teachers “sum of all human knowledge.”16 But is 2. It is necessary, then, for students to need to address them. Indeed, directing that how knowledge construction works— understand what Wikipedia is and students away from Wikipedia is a denial do we simply add it together? What hap- how it works. With access to an of the real landscape of our students’ lives.