College students & their love for Wikipedia

http://www.dailyillini.com/blogs/on-the-town/2010/03/29/wikipedia-secret-to-college-success talks about how Wikipedia can be the college student's best friend.

I think that this points out that instructors too often take polar extremes when talking about information resources ("microfilm is GOOD" "Internet is BAD"), when we need to talk to our students more about the subtleties of information resources.

For instance, we all have friends that are very good at suggesting movies that we will like, and other friends that are good at suggesting restaurants. But the movie critic is not good at food suggestions, and vice-versa. And you wouldn't take relationship advice from either one of them.

So, Wikipedia is probably unsurpassed in, as this student points out, "Dwight Shrute’s co-worker relations, or if any progress has been made on the “Friends” film idea or the schedule for the first 48 matches of the 2010 FIFA World Cup."

And it may even, as the student points out, do a passable job of explaining the French Revolution in quick and dirty terms. The journal Nature has reported on Wikipedia vs. Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Wikipedia held its own versus Britannica.

So, if you are talking to students about Wikipedia, let's stop saying "don't use it" and start saying "don't STOP at Wikipedia - take what you got there and explore further".