Monday, July 15, 2019

Mind Blown


Many of us have issues with the curse of knowledge. We take everything we know for granted and at times, we believe that everybody else is on the same page. However, this is not the case. During our afternoon’s learning, we learned how to use Google in a way that many of us did not know. We learned how to search up information with different perspectives. For example, to find a government, whether the United States or a different country, we can use “site:gov” to find information about a certain  topic. Also, we learned how to sort the information by time frames and looking up older newspapers. These are the tricks that educators need to teach to their students. It sure would’ve been helpful knowing this while in high school.

Also, I remember being told that Wikipedia is not a trusted source and that we should find more trusted websites for sources. Today, we just learned the opposite. Wikipedia can be very trusted for many reasons. One of them is that even though anybody is able to edit on a Wikipedia page, the managers of the certain page will get notified and they have the authority to remove the misleading information. We also learned that by clicking on the talk tab on a Wikipedia page, we can see the ranking of that page and how valuable it is. So, Wikipedia can be a reliable source that the students will be able to use. Plus, there is an option to make an assignment out of using Wikipedia. A way to give back to the internet is to add information from a person or topic that has been researched in class onto an existing page on Wikipedia. In this way, they are practicing their writing skills and they are able to contribute to society through the internet. Therefore, instead of forcing the students to get away from using technology, especially Wikipedia, we need to embrace what the internet has and teach our students how to use the internet. 

As a source, I looked up Pikachu and learned that Pikachu is rated GA-class with Top-performance. This means that this page is well respected and it is encouraged to improve the site if needed. There is also a chat further down in the page that incorporates the suggestions and comments about the page to try and improve the page more. As a student, we don’t typically look this far into the Wikipedia website. However, this needs to change. If I were to make a paper or presentation about Pikachu, then this Wikipedia page will be just as reliable as any other website. 


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