Thursday, April 16, 2009
Wikipedia???
Well I finally found the correct details for Alvin Toffler's quote ""The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." I decided to google the quote and came up with a wikipedia entry. The quote was referenced as belonging to a book with the title "Rethinking the future". The book is not even written by Alvin Toffler and although he has written a foreword for the book, he does not include this quote. It actually comes from a book titled "Futureshock" which was written by Alvin and Heidi Toffler in 1970. He must have had great foresight even then as the computer age was in it's infancy 40 years ago. Anyway this annoyed me that inconsistencies can be placed on a site that is so popular, especially with students. I have been comparing Wikipedia to other online encyclopaedias for students to evaluate. I often find students copying the definitions from wikipedia without even understanding the content or meaning of what they are writing. The value of Information literacy skills is becoming clear to me and although our school appears to be ignorant of the developments surrounding these issues I feel that it is important that someone takes the initiative to at least introduce discussion around the topic.
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Until the residential school at the beginning of the semester, I didn't even realise that Wikipedia was unreliable (how embarrassing!).
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