Today in class we looked at websites that presented the user with fake information, however some had very believable aspects to them. I looked at a website called The Onion. The Onion is a website that posts fake news stories online for people to read. The website’s purpose is to be comical, and it is after you realize how ridiculous the information is. A few things that made the site so believable is how well it is put together. I’m guessing this is due to the popularity of the site. It has a large budget to work with so the creators are able to doctor photos very well this is another reason it seems believable.
We also looked at Wikipedia as a source of information and it’s credibility. The reason some question the information there is that anyone can edit a wikipedia page. No one can really know how reliable the information is other than the creator. Wikipedia is very popular because it contains a lot of information on just about every topic you can imagine. Many students start projects or research papers by looking their topic up on wikipedia. Wikipedia is like an encyclopedia everyone can add information to.
I understand why teachers have problems with students using wikipedia as a main source of information but I believe that if student learn to use Wikipedia responsibly and use critical thinking to evaluate to information Wikipedia can be a very good place to start research and find some very useful information. When using Encyclopedia Britannia and Wikipedia to search for the same topics it appeared the Wikipedia had much more information.
According to Crovitz and Smoot’s article, Seven Things About Technology, is “not…a source of truth but…a springboard for inquiry“. Students should use Wikipedia as a place to start rather than a place to get all of their information.
