Wikipedia in the Classroom

"Don't use Wikipedia, it's not a reliable source," is a phrase that countless students are probably far too familiar with.  Today, children in classrooms are far more reliant on technology than previous generations, whether it is for school work or connecting with others.  Technology is something that students just seem to instinctively know now.  Wikipedia is the collaboration of millions of people around the globe putting together sources into one place as an online encyclopedia.  I was not aware of this before starting the Technology in Education course, but there is a way to check the reliability of any article on Wikipedia.  By going to the "talk" tab in Wikipedia, you can check for the quality scale and importance scale.  On the quality scale, anything ranked as FA (Featured Article), A (A-Class), or GA (Good Article), has been reviewed and stands as an excellent resource.  Anything below (B, C, etc) should be used with caution or steered clear of.  The importance scale, ranking from Low Importance to Top Importance, determines how much more information is needed to complete an article, or at least get it on track to GA status (with Top requiring more information and Low requiring less).  Furthermore, before any edits can be made to an article, it must be passed by an AI to confirm that the information is relevant and reliable to be used.