I know we've discussed Wikipedia on the list before - especially as it pertains to use by students as a source in research papers. But, I just want to pick up on what Bonnie wrote, as it's been on my mind a lot lately:
In my experience, today's students are immersed in the Internet and they won't skip over Wikipedia just because a teacher tells them it's not reliable. The problem is more likely to be that they rely only on Wikipedia and don't dig deeper, even when Wikipedia tells them where to dig.
I'm teaching an Web literacy course this semester, and my students have become, well, brainwashed by other faculty that Wiki or really *any* source one gets off the Web is not to be trusted. Some students report that faculty tell them they may not use any Web-discovered or Web-published information in their papers. I find this attitude towards Web-based information resources deeply problematic, and am trying to break students of this "Web Info BAD" mentality. I am curious if others of you who are teaching students find this mentality in their students and where it seems to be coming from? I can't help but wonder if faculty just establish a "Thou Shalt Not Use Web Sources" in their assignments, rather than try to talk with students about determining the quality and crediblity of information they find online or offline [besides, why should we think that information we find in other media is somehow more credible . . . .] Best, ~Jenny