Thing 10 - ("desat" - SLOVAK)

When I learned more about Wiki's this year at our school district's year kickoff workshops, I was pumped to used them more often in my life. I first suggested to my teammates that we should try to use a Wiki to form grade level groups (a practice we use sometimes). I then created one for my personal life. My girlfriend is a scheduler. I am a spontaneous planner going day-by-day. A Wiki was our great compromise on figuring out our schedules together. It has been a joy. I used pbwiki to create both Wikis. The ability for others to add information for a group or another person to see without running an official website is terrific. Wikis can reach even the layman internet users.

I disagree with banning Wikipedia as a resource. I read this blog entry as I researched the accuracy of Wikipedia. I agree with Andrew Gent's post from Feb. 1, 2008. A specific quote I'd like to point out is the following:

"Unfortunately, people quickly start to refine or replace these rudimentary definitions with descriptions of how they believe these goals should be achieved. So knowledge management is no longer managing knowledge, it is specific approaches to managing certain types of knowledge: facilitating communities, selecting and promoting best practices, using story telling to capture implicit knowledge... And quickly the war begins the proponents and detractors of various methodologies." - Andrew Gent, 2/01/2008

I think the conflict he is talking about is in the world of educators leading to these bans and arguments against Wikipedia. I am not going to make my argument, but I strongly believe in my role as a teacher. I hope my teaching practices DOES NOT lead to a student who believes everything they see in words. I hope my teaching practices DOES lead to a student who can resource a diverse collection of information, personally evaluate that information to gain knowledge, and apply that new knowledge in their life.

I edited the 23 Things On a Stick Wiki at pbwiki.com. Go check it out! If you like Calvin and Hobbes, you might enjoy my edit.