Do wikis or Google Sites have a place in academia? If no, why not? If yes, how?
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In this course, students will discover, evaluate and utilize new technologies to create educational materials. Focus will be on Web 2.0 tools and the read/write web.
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About Me
- Amy Slate
- B.A. in French Education, Drew University; M.Ed in Educational Technology, Lesley University; Ed.D candidate in Curriculum and Teaching, Boston University. Teaching certifications in CT and MA, French K-12 and Instructional Technology K-12. All-around funny, smart chick.
11 comments:
Although wikis and google sites are not always reliable, I think they are a great place to start your research. Wiki sites usually provide general information about so many different topics. Although you can't directly incorporate the information to your work, you can build your research off of the intially information you gathered from these sites.
With the current use of technology and internet in the classroom, wikis and google sites do have a place in academia. While teachers don't necessarily have to incorporate them into their lesson plans, many students look to wikis and google sites for quick information before looking at credible sources. Wikis and google sites are also extremely helpful when doing group projects.
For pure academic research and sourcing, wikis do not have a place in academia. When I think of research in academia, I imagine a Ph.D student presenting their dissertation; if that student were to present their thesis to the dissertation committee they would probably get thrown out of the room if they cited their facts and argument from Wikipedia or Ask.com. This information is not credible because (usually) there are limited to no restrictions as to who can edit the data. In a perfect world, you would have scholars adding data and building upon each other to create a highly educational and informational page, rather than incompetent users providing incorrect or inappropriate (i.e. Billy Cundiff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Cundiff) information. I think wikis are a great place to start looking for data, but they should not be where you draw your facts from. Because information is so readily accessible, I think it has actually harmed student’s ability to perform intense academic research. When students can get immediate answers to their homework problems from Wikis, so why would they bother to read and try to interpret the intricacies of 1984 when sparknotes/wikipedia does it for them?
Wikis and google sites can be use in an academic setting if they are given proper citation and corroboration by the page moderators. These pages are especially useful as starting points in learning about the famous names in a particular topic of research. Using these pages can give a student the general framework and summary of the current knowledge in a particular field. This is where the academic utility of wikis and google sites end. The scholar must then explore these citations in peer reviewed journals in order to cite viable sources.
I think Google and Wikis are great rsesources for use in the academic setting. It opens a lot of venues for plagiarism and sometimes there's an overwhelming amount of information, but the fact that it's an accessible source of knowledge and answers makes it a necessary tool for students and teachers.
Well my last post didn't save, but I view Wikis as good reference points for academic endeavors. By no means should they be cited due to the fact that most wikis and google sites can be freely edited. Fortunately, atleast on wikipedia, the sources they get their information from is cited and can be viewed for academic purposes.
I think that wikis are google sites have a small place in academia. Because they allow many people to edit them, it can be a good place to share thoughts and ideas and information. However, this can also cause a problem because some people can add inaccurate edits to the sites which would cause others to get the wrong information. These sites may be a good place to start off when doing research, but academics and scholars don't use these sites as references when writing formal papers. They tend to look for more reliable sources. So in this way, I think that wikis and google sites have a limited amount of use in academia.
I believe wikis and Google sites do have a place in academia. They are not always reputable sources because on many of these sites, information is not completely valid and we do not know what source the information is coming from. However, if students are researching a topic that they have no prior knowledge of, these sites can give the student a general understanding of the topic in simplified terms. The students should then use reputable, scholarly sources to do research on the topic which they can incorporate into their work and cite.
Wikis and Google Sites definitely have a place in academia as a tool that can be utilized in order to share information among a group that is committed to learning about a similar topic. These tools aid group members in contributing relevant knowledge in order to build a collection of information that is far greater than that which can be accomplished by a single person. They allow groups to pool their resources and efficiently organize and edit large amounts of data; thus, they can be valuable tools for research.
Wikis and Google Sites definitely have a place in academia as a tool that can be utilized in order to share information among a group that is committed to learning about a similar topic. These tools aid group members in contributing relevant knowledge in order to build a collection of information that is far greater than that which can be accomplished by a single person. They allow groups to pool their resources and efficiently organize and edit large amounts of data; thus, they can be valuable tools for research.
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