Wikipedia: Fact or Whatever-you-want-it-to-be?

Almost all of my college professors have made it clear that "outside sources" for papers should be reliable - which means no Wikipedia sources. "Anyone can write something on Wikipedia," they all say. It was never very clear to me why anyone would go out of their way to write something NOT true in an online encyclopedia until I read this article...

NPR: Who's Been Messin' with My Wikipedia Entry?
"Corporations like Diebold, Raytheon, Pfizer, Exxon Mobil and Wal-Mart. Not to mention the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, members of Congress, the CIA, the Church of Scientology and the Catholic Church. They all made changes of some kind to entries that included references or information about them."

It is now that I realize why it may NOT be a good idea to turn to Wikipedia as a source. The information may be true to an extent, but if people are editing entries about opposing forces, the information presented may be biased. What would someone say about me on Wikipedia? If I don't like it, I have every right to go in and change it if it's not accurate - but if someone else comes along and decides "that's not what she did," they may feel like they have the right to change it, also. I'm not sure what the rules are for editing Wikipedia, but if it can be done, that's a problem. Reliability just turned into "what this person thought about it."

If you think you have found a good, accurate article on Wikipedia, perhaps you should check to see WHO wrote it before considering granting it as "reliable." I read in NPR's article about the Scanner that Tracks Who's Changing What on Wikipedia. This scanner allows the reader to trace the IP address of the editors, exposing the editor of the articles. You wouldn't expect to turn in a paper without citing your sources, so why should you expect to use a collaborative website's information without first examining its sources?

Mr. McClung had some wonderful insight on teaching - things that he learned in his first year, published in his blog At the Teacher's Desk. The part that really stuck out to me was when he said, "Technology is our friend and is essential to living in our microwave society of today. We should not become overwhelmed by technology and simply give up before we start." I love the microwave analogy. Mr. McClung may have had a different interpretation, but I took it to mean that technology is just as essential in living today as a microwave is - it makes everything easier and faster, just like a microwave does for cooking.