“Hate” may be too strong a word because I actually do use Wikipedia just to get background information but it can’t be trusted. I was embarrassed for a friend of mine in Minnesota who used it as one of her references in her Ph.D. dissertation. Her advisor was as ignorant about computers and what Wikipedia is all about as my friend was. Years down the road when people look at my friend’s Bibliography, they will wonder how she ever got a Ph.D. with inserting encyclopedia information into her research.
Sorry, looking at encyclopedias is NOT research, it is just getting a reference that might not be entirely accurate or true. Digging in archives and getting oral interviews from people who have witnessed an event is what research is all about!!!
For fun, I invite you to look at the new page I created about Famous Aviators in the early 1930s. You can even check these names out in Wikipedia but never let me catch my students using it for their final research paper!!!
It really was the golden age for pilots because they were trying to beat “round-the-world” records and many of the pilots flew over Siberia. I’m just wondering what these adventurers saw during the early 1930s. Did these pilots take photos of the conditions of those Ukrainians or Russians being punished and who were sent to Siberia? Were the aviators aware of the 1932-33 forced famine happening in Ukraine? What do my students’ grandparents know about the early pilots in the USSR?
This subject will be fun to explore and we can explode some of the myths created and perpetuated on Wikipedia!!!
True History Matters 
4 comments
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February 19, 2007 at 10:24 am
bbgl
Dear Ms.Gray
you know, im really suprised how much you know about the internet, all those research sites and how you always come up with different information that we really should know about and all that history stuff is so important to you.
I think its just great, there should be more teachers like you, that dont do the regular stuff students do, this is education but what we learn from you seems so much important…its history and it should never be forgotten, because only if all of this stays a subject we will learn and never do the same misstakes that happened in the world once before….
i just tried to say thank you!
February 19, 2007 at 11:10 am
xeniathefirst
I agree that wikipedia is not always true, but how can you be otherwise the first link at google without to push up your site? !!! 😉
February 19, 2007 at 1:06 pm
TheSeawave
Dear Mrs. Gray,
I agree that Wikipedia does not always give accurate information. I know it for sure, because one time I tried to search something, and did it using different sites. The information was very different. The information at the Wikipedia site is not deep enough even if accurate, but it can be good for a start or if a person needs general information.
February 20, 2007 at 9:18 am
Michelle
I heard that anyone can post information regarding subjects on Wikipedia and when you read something from it, you are at the mercy of that individual as to whether the information they are writing about it really accurate or not.
It would be interesting to know if this was true or not. I look at it for general information but keep the above in mind as I read about subjects.