Should Schools Block Sites Like Wikipedia?

Londovir asks: "Recently, our school board made the decision to block Wikipedia from our school district's WAN system. This was a complete block — there aren't even provisions in place for teachers or administrators to input a password to bypass the restriction. The reason given was that Wikipedia (being user created and edited) did not represent a credible or reliable source of information for schools. Should we block sites such as Wikipedia because students may be exposed to misinformation, or should we encourage sites such as Wikipedia as an outlet for students to investigate and determine the validity of the information?"

Comments

Wrap it in a frame.

[khasim]

Yep, blocking it is stupid. But you should be reminding the kids that anyone can post anything on the Internet.

So just wrap a frame around the Wikipedia pages with the words "Any doofus can put anything up on the Internet. Don't be dumber than the doofus."

Absolutely.

[Z0mb1eman]

Schools should absolutely block Wikipedia and sites like Wikipedia.

In fact, schools should do one better. They should start by blocking ALL WEB SITES. Next, they should whitelist and allow only sites on which ALL the information has been verified as 100% accurate by the school staff.

This information checking should be done independently by every school throughout the nation. To avoid bias by the teachers for their favourite subjects, the fact checking should only be done by IT staff.

Further, the results of fact checking shall be collected in a centralized, proprietary database, contracted to the highest bidder. Sites shall only be added to the whitelist once they have been unanimously approved by ALL the schools.

To avoid changes to the verified content, a parallel "intranet" system shall be created with static copies of the verified pages, and only these shall be accessible by students.

Damn, I should be a school board policymaker!

Re:Absolutely.

[mgiuca]

Excellent. The more we block untrustworthy sites, the better our students are protected from finding "misleading" or "unreliable" information.

I think it's very important that students in schools are only allowed to access 100% accurate information. That way, when they get out into the real world, they will trust everything they read and can be manipulated easily.

Re:Of Course Not

[Anonymous Coward]

Encyclopedia Dramatica is blocked by Websense as "tasteless". Which it is. But I do agree with you. ~~~~

Of course ;-)

[Fujisawa Sensei]

The should block Wikipedia from both student and teachers.

They should not cave in to pressure from teachers or parents, they should stick to their guns.

Because the students need first get used to being screwed by then man. And second and more importantly, they need to learn to subvert the system while they're young; it will help them in the real world.

Re:Manganese

[Skevin]

At a former workplace, I tried to google for "python scripting trim whitespace". The page was blocked. I asked the owner of the company (who set up the blocking software out of the box) and he responded with "Animals have nothing to do with your job. Writing screenplays have nothing to do with your job. And I definitely will not tolerate my employees looking at websites of racist organizations."

Solomon

Re:I wish I had mod points

[dwater]

You and *I*....tsk.

To be true to The Great Wiki

[eyrieowl]

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