[etni] Re: Wikipedia and Plagiarism
- From: "Elana Sztokman" <elana.sztokman@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Ruthi" <rsheffer@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 13:01:28 +0200
Dear Ruth
My god, the things that teachers have to go through....
The logistics you describe certainly are trying, and I imagine familiar to many
other teachers out there. But maybe if more teachers formulated a clearer plan
-- like yours -- for what they want out of their students in the new hi-tech
world, the schools would be more likely to adapt to changing times and changing
notions of educating and writing...(maybe, anyway...)
In the meantime, maybe you can pressure your administration to systemize this
computer lab work, like making an excel sheet and signing up in advance and
putting it on the admin's shoulders to make sure the tech guy is around for the
booked hours.
B'vracha,
Elana
----- Original Message -----
From: Ruthi
To: elana.sztokman@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: [etni] Re: Wikipedia and Plagiarism
I agree entirely ,Elana but surely in order to do any of this stuff
effectively what we would need would be access to a wired classroom where each
kid would have an internet connection and be able to access the Wonderful world
of wiki in classroom time and then the teacher would help to teach online
skills , which is really what they need now.
However, if ,in order to do this I have to order the lab a week in advance of
the lesson, get the key from the technician ,who may or may not be available,
run back up 3 flights to my class, bring the kids down to the lab 4 floors
below , and then pray that the internet will indeed be working, for a 50 minute
class, chances is , I will prefer "okay class open your books at p.34 exercise
3".
Sad but that's my situation right now.
I built a wiki, gave the kids the address , and hoped they would go in and
write stuff, but surprise surprise ,since it was just a suggestion, very few
did that.
Ruth
2009/2/6 Elana Sztokman <elana.sztokman@xxxxxxxxx>
I would like to make a possibly radical suggestion.
Maybe we need to rethink the kind of writing we are trying to teach.
While I certainly value the writing of research papers, maybe given the way
the world works now, the availability of Wikipedia and other overabundant
sources of basic information, maybe teaching how to write research papers
is, well, I wouldn't say passe, but perhaps not top priority.
For example, maybe we need to teach kids how to write a good blog. Blogging
is actually a lot like a research paper, when done well, becuase a good blog
brings in other "sources" (whether from wikis or other blogs or life
experience), which have to be properly "quoted" and explained in context,
and these sources are meant to be woven together by the writer's voice,
which is the independent-thinking part -- and ultimately the good part. This
kind of writing may speak to kids more, and give them real incentive to
learn how to write authentically and well, true to themselves, because they
will understand that nobody is going to open a blog that is a wikipedia cut
and paste. It restores the purpose of good writing within the kids' culture.
Plus, you know, they just may have more motivation to do well in this task
than in the task of writing a research paper.
I know it probaly sounds ridiculous saying it, but I think that maybe the
world of writing has changed so much around us, that rather that fight this
whole "pasting from wikipedia" phenomenon -- which is going to be an uphill
battle no matter how clever we are -- that maybe we rethink a little bit
what we're doing to adapt to our surrounding culture.
B'vracha,
Elana
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mitzi Geffen" <mitzi1002001@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <drjamesbacker@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 6:42 PM
Subject: [etni] Re: Wikipedia and Plagiarism
> Funny, I didn't think we came to a catch 22. Even if you insist on the
> kids doing all of the work on the computer, there is no reason not to
> insist that they provide a print-out of each article they use and somehow
> indicate the paragraphs from which they took their information. My
> students also want to use Wikipedia, and I say fine, but you won't get
> credit for having done the project! They have learned that it is not in
> their interest to break that rule!
>
> A man has been sent to the moon. That was probably much harder to figure
> out than this!
>
> All the best,
> Mitzi
> --- On Thu, 2/5/09, James Backer <drjamesbacker@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> From: James Backer <drjamesbacker@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [etni] Wikipedia and Plagiarism
> To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Thursday, February 5, 2009, 4:32 PM
>
> Greetings, all!
>
> Please let me clarify my position about Wikipedia. It is a great place to
> start
> thinking about a topic and it has some great links to serious sources. It
> cannot/should not be cited in papers because it is a wiki: something whose
> content can change in the next five minutes.
>
> I tell my high school students this over and over, but they seem not to
> believe
> me, or accept the "rule." I also teach my graduate students, who are
> in-service teachers, the same thing: Don't accept Wikipedia as an entry in
> a
> reference list.
>
> Because I get ETNI as a digest, I didn't know that Mitzi had posted her
> response on the list. We had a very interesting off-list discussion coming
> to a
> real Catch 22.
>
> If you want to avoid copy-and-paste plagiarism, you can have your kids do
> all
> the drafts with paper and pen. Then the final draft can be word-processed
> at
> home. (Unfortunately, there are always a few kids without computers at
> home,
> leading to all sorts of problems with the administrators and parents. I
> had one
> mirakezet machzor attack me for suggesting that the kids could do computer
> work - or anything else - during breaks.)
>
> On the other hand, do we want our student stuck back in the 20th
> Century? Don't we want them to know how to be digital, online and off?
> (Please note: I am *not* saying neglect handwriting.) Isn't the project a
> perfect way to teach them 21st Century skills? They could search, evaluate
> their
> findings, summarize, synthesize, compose, correct, and present their work
> digitally. But sadly, some of the kids just copy-and-paste, creating even
> more
> work for teachers who have to find the plagiarism and confront the
> students with
> it.
>
> There seems to be no easy solution for this Catch 22 situation because a
> few
> kids, and their parents, will always be ready to abuse the system -
> whatever
> that system is. One way or another, the teacher ends up spending many
> hours
> working on these problems, which often only have tangential importance to
> teaching/learning English.
>
> Jimmy
>
>
>
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