Quite honestly, I know very little about Wikipedia prior to taking this course. I have used it a couple of times before, but I never questioned the validity of its content because the information I got was accurate and complete. I didn't realize until after I've read my classmates posts on this topic in our online discussion forum how controversial of a research source it is.
Now that I know what I know about Wikipedia, the question now is ... should I allow my students to use Wikipedia as a research source? My response is ... why not? I used (and will continue to use) it! My reaction is as such because when doing research, I ALWAYS require my students to use multi-sourcing. This way, a lot (if not all) of the discrepancies and inaccuracies will likely surface, and we (as a class) can make the corrections ourelves.
In reading my classmates' posts on Wikipedia, I found that they all basically revolved around this notion. Familiarize our students with the different features of Wikipedia (including the history tab, which I myself just recently learned about), discuss with them the pros and cons of using it as a research source, educate them on how to use it wisely and responsibly, and lastly ... evaluate their work based on how effectively they managed to incorporate their researched information into the overall content of their work.
In a nutshell, Maria!
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