Response to chapters 4 & 7

Wikipedia – Wiki (Hawaiian for quick) is an amazing collaborative source.  Each entry is essentially a report written and edited by a bunch of anonymous users and is updated every day.   Is this information reliable and should it be used in schools?  For the most part I agree with Richardson, the information is accurate and is already written in report format taking away the work from the students.  However students need to be able to use other sources besides Wikipedia.  I allow my students to view Wikipedia for aide or for a quick reference however for a research report students need to find their own cite able sources with credible authors in order to prove their argument.

            As Richardson says, if Wiki’s are used in a K-12 classroom, their needs to be some type of security and acknowledgement of authors in order to prevent vandalism.  Teachers may use websites such as Wikispaces, PBwiki or something with a login and username in order to monitor students.  By using Wiki’s in education teachers can have students be part of the “process” of collaborating information.

            In Chapter 7 Richardson introduces the website Flickr which allows anyone to access web-based digital photography.  One of the best things about Flickr is that many of the images contain a Creative Commons copyright license.  Meaning many of them can be used by others as long as certain guidelines are followed.  This is a great resource for educators to have students use rather than Google Images because of the many copyright issues.  By having students use a Creative Commons website such as Flickr it helps to reinforce academic integrity in that not every image from the Internet can be used and there are limitations on how resources can be used within student work.