Wikipedia: Friend or Foe

I agree that Wikipedia is not completely reliable, but in my opinion, I like to use Wikipedia to get general information about a topic if I have no idea what the topic is about. I think its great as a place to start off researching, and the bottom of the page can bring you to other sites where you can find more information about the topic. This article hasn't really changed my mind about how I feel. I do on the other hand tend to agree on a couple things when dealing with education. I understand that educators want to get rid of Wikipedia all together as a source of information and I kind of get that because I agree that its not completely credible since anyone can edit it. When it comes to important documents, research papers, etc., you want your students to recieve the most relible information possible. To direct my students to use Wikipedia in my future classroom, I would tell them to use Wikipedia like I do. I would encourage them to use Wikipedia as a starting off point to get general information on the topic and jot down some notes about what they read. Wikipedia is very easy to read and easy to understand, so its a great way for children to get a good grasp on the general point of the topic. They can then start using more reliable sources and it will be easier for them to understand the information better since most of the time more reliable sources can be harder to read because of use of bigger words.