Yet another silly attack on Wikipedia

Submitted by Dominik Lukes on Tue, 24/06/2008 - 00:37.

What was the last time you found something eggregiously inaccurate on Wikipedia? And if the biggest problem in education is the occasional inaccurate information what happened to the skills focus of the last decades? I cannot stress enough how ill-informed this complaint is. The conclusion, of course, is correct. Schools need to teach students how to treat sources of information but they need to start with textbooks, teachers knowledge base and exam boards. I've been recently teaching some web-design at the post-16 level and the curriculum provided by an awarding body contained errors that would be unheard of on Wikipedia!

Falling exam passes blamed on Wikipedia 'littered with inaccuracies' - Scotsman.com News
WIKIPEDIA and other online research sources were yesterday blamed for Scotland's falling exam pass rates.

The Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) said pupils are turning to
websites and internet resources that contain inaccurate or deliberately
misleading information before passing it off as their own work.

The group singled out online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which allows entries to be logged or updated by anyone and is not verified by researchers, as the main
source of information.
...
Eleanor Coner, the SPTC's information officer, said: "Children are very
IT-savvy, but they are rubbish at researching. The sad fact is most
children these days use libraries for computers, not the books. We
accept that as a sign of the times, but schools must teach pupils not
to believe everything they read.
...
She said: "Pupils are in danger of believing what they read. It's part of our short-cut culture, where we will do anything to pass a test, without properly engaging with the information or questions that are being asked.

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