Wikiality

He sat hunched over his computer in the dark room.  The glare of the screen reflected off his pale, sullen face.  He was on guard.  This was his world.  He was the creator and watched over it like a mountain lion watching over her cub.  No one dared to tread on his territory.

But then there was a small, slight sound – a ‘ping’ from the computer.  Someone had entered his lair.  He was on high alert now!  His fingers tense on the keyboard ready to pounce on the unsuspecting intruder.  What?!?  Where is the humanity?? Glenn Seaborg, Nobel Prize winning Chemist is now listed as a Nobel Prize winning ballet dancer!!?  No!  He cannot allow such madness!  He leaps into action.  His fingers fly across the keyboard righting the wrong committed before the world is any the wiser. 

This is the vision I held in my mind when I changed the “Ishpeming” Wikipedia page.  Ishpeming is the small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that I call home.  It is just a little place with little dreams.  Surely no one would be watching this Wikipedia page – or so I thought.  Near the bottom of this page, there is a section listing notable people.  It is in this section, on this little unimportant page that I made my change.  Three minutes……that is how long it took for the mistake to be caught and corrected.  Three short minutes.  That to me was simply amazing.  And it was also proof that some people (myself included) spend way too much time on their computers.

So I decided to step up my game a bit.  I went after a subject that was a little more serious.  My daughter was diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia three years ago.  When the initial diagnosis was made, I was desperate for information and immediately turned to the web to learn everything and anything about Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome, a subgroup of Supraventricular Tachycardia.  It is on this Wikipedia page that I decided to make my next attempt at editing.  I did it here, because three years ago it was here that I was given inaccurate information about the condition.  That information has since been corrected, but thanks to me, it was changed back.  Instead of 0.1% to 0.3% of people with this condition experiencing sudden death, I changed it to 3%.  You may think this isn’t a worthwhile difference, but please put yourself in my shoes for a minute.  If you were told your daughter had a 3 in 1000 chance of falling over dead at any moment because of this condition, you probably wouldn’t be too overly concerned.  But if you were told she had a 3 in 100 chance of sudden death, wouldn’t that cause you to be a bit more apprehensive?  The change I made to this ‘more important’ page is still up four days later.  I will wait another day or two and then change it back if it is not caught.  I am feeling some guilt for the misinformation.

So what does this mean to us in education?  It means we must carefully pick and choose what tools we allow our students to use in research.  Wikipedia can be used as a source, but it should never be used as the only source of information.  What is found on the site should be verified by secondary sources.  It cannot be viewed as gospel.  This same logic applies to any ‘free’ information available.  If a textbook is free online, in my opinion, its accuracy should be suspect.  Free translates into loosely edited.  There are some things in life worth paying for. 

The Stephen Colbert segment spoke volumes with the line, “Wikipedia – bringing democracy to reality.”  No truer words could be said about this free encyclopedia website.  Reality, according to this satire, is simply what everyone agrees upon.  That is the driving force behind Wikipedia.  Does that truly make up what reality is?  On one hand, the obvious answer would be, “Of course not!”  Everyone in a group could agree that I am a genius, but that does not in any way make me a genius.  But on the other hand, there are many instances where perception is reality.  If everyone in a group perceives me to be a leader, I will most likely be treated as, and act like, a leader.  So therefore democracy can indeed create reality. But, herein lies the problem.  Not everything available on Wikipedia is open to perception dictating reality. The sudden death rates of people with WPW syndrome are not open to debate. 

With that being said, let me point out why I will not discontinue the use of Wikipedia or other ‘free’ information sources in my classroom. Just as the example was given in “Made to Stick”, sometimes you need to start with a familiar, somewhat untrue example or story in order to catch the subject matter in a student’s mind.  Wikipedia may be full of inaccuracies, but it is easily available and the students can understand it at their level.  Therefore it is easier to ‘catch the subject’ using Wikipedia and then follow up with deeper, richer (and often times, more accurate) information on a subject through other sources.  It is under these conditions that I will continue to use Wikipedia and the like as tools in my classroom.

Typical Wikipedia Editor on Day Job
http://bretjordan.wordpress.com/