Wikipedia and the New Curriculum
Digital Literacy Is Knowing How We Store What We Know
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When I hear debates about the digital divide, access is often the largest issue, as if merely having access to computers solves the problem. “Bring computers into the schools and fund technology” are the regular solutions. However, the technology here is merely secondary: what is more important is teaching people how this technology changes the social sphere so that students too can be empowered to engage the polis rather than being passive users of Word Processing programs. Knowledge of how to indent paragraphs on a computer or make bullet points for a Power Point presentation is meaningless without the more important literacy of how to use these new media collaboratively to create a different kind of knowledge. Literacy in modern society means not only being able to read a variety of informational formats; it means being able to participate in their creation, with Wikipedia serving as the marquee example.
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I think he makes a good point about the value of studying Wikipedia in order to gain an understanding of the ways in which we construct, archive and disseminate knowledge through new media.
I think the comments also serve to illuminate not only some of the controversy of Wikipedia as a source of information, but also the difficulty in grasping the complexity involved in acquiring digital literacy.
1 comment:
It's a solid good point that he makes. Like spelling and grammar, code format becomes a vital tool of the emerging culture.
However, access remains the primary issue. Wikipediea isn't very egalitarian, it's ruled with a heavy ahnd by people with a huge amount of time available to them. One aspect that worries me about the wiki culture beyond accuracy is the possibility that it is most influenced by the least productive members of society. The more free time you have, the more you can dominate eantries with constant challenges, updates, alterations, and creations.
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