wikipedia-beyond

= Wikipedia & Beyond =

toc

The Full Wiki
The Full Wiki is a mash-up of Wikipedia entries. There are five tabs across the top – //Reference//, //Quiz//, //Facts//, //Map//, & //Search//. The Reference tab finds similar sentences to those in Wikipedia, complete with their citations to easily find the source. It’s an easy way to branch off to find authoritative sources & relevant quotes to deepen students’ research. The Quiz tab provides questions over the entry to expand students’ understanding on the topic. The Facts tab provides bulleted facts on the topic. The Maps tab takes Wikipedia articles & places them on a Google Map. It essentially is geolocating Wikipedia entries. The last tab, Search provides related search results for the topic of interest.

Wikipedia Book Creator
Wikipedia is a great source of information, especially the voluminous amount of references listed at the bottom of the articles. A problem with Wikipedia is that you have to have Internet access to read any of the articles. Wikipedia has a work around to solve this problem, the Wikipedia Book Creator. This feature allows you to select one or more pages from the online encyclopedia, & turn them into PDF eBook format that you can now read offline. Best of all, if you would like to make changes to the pages you used, you can download the eBook in the OpenDocument Text format.


 * 1) Enable the “Book Creator” tool. On the left side of any article, under the Print/export, just click on Create a book. Select Start book creator.
 * 2) Collect articles. Once you find an article to add to your eBook, select Add this page to you book. If you are looking for more pages, select Suggest pages.
 * 3) Review your book. Enter the title, subtitle, create chapters, sort & remove articles.
 * 4) Download or order a printed book. Select the format & download your new eBook.

Wikipedia in Education
To Wikipedia or not to Wikipedia? That is the question of many teachers. Is Wikipedia a reliable source for students to use? What is the truth? What are the facts & what are the myths?

Wikipedia is a wiki. In other words, a wiki is a simple webpage that is collaborative. Meaning multiple authors can create, write, & edit a page. The thing to keep in mind is that one person creates a page & becomes the gatekeeper. Pages can be set up to either notify the author of new changes or to be approved by the author. Not all wikis are set up that way. It depends on the author & whether or not they have it set as a private wiki. So Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is a wiki.

Criticisms of Wikipedia;
 * Poor prose, or ease-of-reading issues
 * Omissions or inaccuracies, often small but including key omissions in some articles
 * Poor balance, with less important areas being given more attention & vice versa

The most common praises of Wikipedia;
 * Factually sound & correct, no glaring inaccuracies
 * Much useful information, including well selected links, making it possible to "access much information quickly"

So what does all this mean? Should students be allowed to use it? Remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, & most college professors do not accept Wikipedia as a reference. Wikipedia is a great place for students to start to get more information about a topic, but they should be encouraged to use the references listed at the bottom of the articles to find more reliable resources.

A tool that can help is the //Firefox// add-on **WikiTrust**, which will color code an Wikipedia article according to the degree with which it has been revised by reputed authors.

WikiTrust
A great Firefox add-on is WikiTrust. This extension helps you find reliable information in a Wikipedia article.

Once you have it installed, when you visit a Wikipedia page, you will see a WikiTrust tab. If you click on it, you will see the text in the article color coded according to the degree with which it has been revised by reputed authors.

High reputation text that has been revised by high-reputation authors will appear white. Low reputation text, which has not been revised by multiple, high-reputation authors, is displayed with an orange highlight. The more intense the orange, the lower the reputation of the text.

If you **Command + Option/Alt + click** on a Mac **(Control + Alt + click** on a PC), you will be redirected to a Wikipedia page where the edited section was introduced. This will enable you to trace the text back to its authors.