With more than half of all US college students now using the site for background information before embarking on an essay, it’s clear that Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, has gained a foothold in the classroom. Darren Crovitz and W. Scott Smoot, writing in The English Journal, a publication of lesson ideas for English teachers, described the dimensions of one Wikipedia lesson that unfolded in Smoot’s middle school classroom. The lesson encouraged students to use the site to generate fresh ideas for research topics by looking for gaps in Wikipedia’s information.
Learning To Dig Deeper
Smoot’s ambition was to show how teachers can use Wikipedia to help students ask the right questions for writing research papers. First, he asked his class to shout out historical facts regarding president Abraham Lincoln. He wrote all the facts on the board: born in Kentucky; was president during The American Civil War; freed the slaves; and so on. Smoot then asked students to scroll through Lincoln’s Wikipedia entry, which happens to contain the same information on the board – and not much more.