eSchool News online discusses the challenge of Wikis, communally aggregated reference materials (like Wikipedia) that may not always offer accurate or reliable information for student research.
Although Wikis may be a problem, the larger issue is that many students trust everything they find on the internet, from Wikis or otherwise. Teachers regularly encounter student reports that include inaccurate bits of information that have been cut and pasted from crackpot internet sites like this, this, and this.
Our schools continue to fail to teach students the research and analytical thinking skills that allow them to be critical consumers of news, information, and opinion. But you already knew that.
