Keri’s having already covered Wikis in class certainly helped me to grasp more of what Richardson was writing about in this chapter. Like many of the teachers he referred to, I often told (tell) my students not to bother with Wikipedia for information, as it is unreliable due to the fact that anyone can write anything on its pages. However, his comments about how closely the content being added is scrutinized by many who want accuracy, is a level of policing that I had not considered. I’m not sure I’m sold on the idea, but I feel more open to checking it out as he suggested. If I’m convinced, it is quite likely that I’ll start to encourage students to use it after careful discussion and practice in checking for accuracy with them. Again, they use it anyway (whether we gainsay it or not), so we may as well teach them to be critical/sophisticated users (possibly contributors?) of this tool.
In particular I was drawn to Richardson’s argument for the use of Wiki’s “… that everyone together is smarter than anyone alone (p. 57).” More and more the idea of teaching solid collaboration skills using this medium appeals to me. I think most students will be enticed by the forum for sharing knowledge and thoughts on topics, as well as be motivated by the challenge of making sure their input is correct to the best of their ability, as well as checking the validity of input by people they are collaborating with. The public forum raises the ante in terms of wanting to do the work well, and learning to work with others to assure success of the overall project, thereby success for all.
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