Wikipedia and the New Curriculum

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It is irresponsible for educational institutions not to teach new knowledge technologies such as Wikipedia.

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I am a professor of Emerging Media

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concern for how literacy changes in the age of the digital.

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Wikipedia, or more generally the networked archival structure it represents, alters the way in which we create, share, and record knowledge, and thus has rather significant effects on how we approach education across all disciplines, and specifically in technology and science.

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It is irresponsible for educational institutions not to teach new knowledge technologies such as Wikipedia.

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Encyclopedias are no longer static collections of facts and figures; they are living entities, and the new software changes the rules of expertise.

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networked archival structure it represents,

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alters the way in which we create, share, and record knowledge

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significant effects on how we approach education across all disciplines

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Students and teachers alike must understand how systems of knowledge creation and archivization are changing

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Seigenthaler controversy

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Encyclopedias are no longer static collections of facts and figures

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living entities

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new software changes the rules of expertise

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Seigenthaler controversy

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Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia

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studies were initiated to compare Wikipedia to other sources such as Britannica

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In many of these studies, Wikipedia fared equally as well as its competitors

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advantage of being able to correct its own errors and relish the fact that others could not do the same

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Seigenthaler

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an organic structure which they no longer control or solely influence represents a crisis indeed

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train students in old literacy

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rather than edit the Wikipedia entry himself, he emailed others about it

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The entry was not changed until, after some time, another colleague of Seigenthaler decided to edit the biography

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Because Wikipedia users tend to be more tech-savvy than the rest of the population, and because tech-savvy individuals are more likely to have science and engineering backgrounds, entries on these topics are some of the strongest in the encyclopedia

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what seems like the easiest and most obvious initial response was not so with respect to the 78-year-old Seigenthaler

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we do a fundamental disservice to our students if we continue to propagate old methods of knowledge creation and archivization without also teaching them how these structures are changing, and, more importantly, how they will relate to knowledge creation and dissemination in a fundamentally different way

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digital literacy

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preserves the debate and discourse around a particular subject

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To educational and policy institutions which, for a substantial portion of history, have maintained control over static codex centered archives—think not only academic libraries, but national ones as well—the shift to an organic structure which they no longer control or solely influence represents a crisis indeed

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history pages and the discussion pages

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As Howard Rheingold suggests in Smart Mobs, in the future individuals will be divided between “those who know how to use new media to band together [and] those who don’t.

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storing and recording important discursive histories

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Wikipedia users tend to be more tech-savvy than the rest of the population,

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because tech-savvy individuals are more likely to have science and engineering backgrounds, entries on these topics are some of the strongest in the encyclopedia.

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collaborative literacy, an ability to understand and negotiate an archival structure which is always in flux, and to which they can contribute

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also records and contributes to the politicization and dissemination of scientific research and communication

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quick reference for any number of scientific facts.

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collaborative literacy in general

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wherein the notion of the individual authority or expert no longer holds

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this runs counter to the ideology of most institutions where individual degrees are the measure of authority but, like it or not, the networked digital archive changes our basis of knowledge and training people for the future is about training them for this shift

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Wikipedia also preserves the debate and discourse around a particular subject.

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digital divide

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having access

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history pages and the discussion pages

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preserves not only its past representations, but also the discourse which produced the current entry

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teaching people how this technology changes the social sphere so that students too can be empowered to engage the polis rather than being passive users of Word Processing programs

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example of this is the entry on global warming, which does a good job of dividing the controversy of global warming from the science on global warming

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students miss out if they do not also consult the discussion and history pages to understand how this article was produced

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In prior models of knowledge, storing and recording important discursive histories was a less than transparent process; indeed, those functions were entirely unavailable.

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Who decided that Pykrete was not important enough to make it into Britannica?

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What this means for training people working in science and technology is that they will need to posses a new type of collaborative literacy, an ability to understand and negotiate an archival structure which is always in flux, and to which they can contribute.

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When I hear debates about the digital divide, access is often the largest issue, as if merely having access to computers solves the problem. “Bring computers into the schools and fund technology” are the regular solutions. However, the technology here is merely secondary: what is more important is teaching people how this technology changes the social sphere so that students too can be empowered to engage the polis rather than being passive users of Word Processing programs. Knowledge of how to indent paragraphs on a computer or make bullet points for a Power Point presentation is meaningless without the more important literacy of how to use these new media collaboratively to create a different kind of knowledge. Literacy in modern society means not only being able to read a variety of informational formats; it means being able to participate in their creation, with Wikipedia serving as the marquee example.

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records and contributes to the politicization and dissemination of scientific research and communication

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And, in order to be participants in these debates, students will need to understand the structures and rhetorics within which they take place.

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the networked digital archive changes our basis of knowledge and training people for the future is about training them for this shift

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What is no longer archived in the same way is no longer lived in the same way.

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more important literacy of how to use these new media collaboratively to create a different kind of knowledge.

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cy in modern society means not only being able to read a variety of informational formats; it means being able to participate in their creation, with Wikipedia serving as the marquee example.

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David Parry is an assistant professor of Emerging Media and Communications at the University of Texas at Dallas.

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