Colbert has done it again! Wikiallity: a substitute reality for those refusing to succumb to a standardized reality, including a ready-to-edit encyclopedia for the masses…you truly can change history if enough people agree with you. Unfortunately, our students take most everything they read on-line as gospel truth and are unable to see that the information garnered from that web-site is not subject to the extensive rigors of actually proving what is written. I’m not saying it is all useless factoids that are devoid of any truth, but when the average Wikipedia account holder can go in and ‘edit’ information as he sees fit, some serious flags should be going up. Using Wikipedia as a referenced source in classroom assignments is a point of contention I’m sure a lot of teachers have experienced. My high-school son said if he were the teacher, he’d allow one reference to be from Wikipedia as long as the student could find a “reputable” source to parallel his findings.

At the outset of this assignment, I honestly didn’t have much experience with Wikipedia nor open-source learning. I certainly wouldn’t have labeled it the wave of the future. But then who knew the internet would have been such a hit! I watched the Colbert video and read several articles both for and against open-source, collaborative efforts. I was even leaning toward favoring the concept as a way for schools to rein in the expense of textbooks; quite frankly the amount of money spent on books could probably feed a third-world country for several years. It’s absurd. As I was kicking around ideas and getting my thoughts in order to defend open-source learning, it hit me…sort of my “ah--ha!” moment. I understand saving money (who doesn’t like saving a buck?) I understand the value of collaborating (pooling information with others is a great way to brainstorm new ideas). I even understand the allure of having a hand in what our kids are learning (boy if I were teaching, those kids would be focusing on _____). What I don’t understand is abandoning traditional books in favor of texts written by a group of people who think they have more to offer than the experts employed to research and document facts to teach our kids. Talk about a 180 shift in my thinking. It should concern everyone that open-source textbooks give faculty and publishers the capacity to control and censor anything they don’t like. What’s to stop them from editing out sections of text that they don’t agree with or particularly like and successfully manipulating the text to say what they want it to say? Like Colbert said, “If enough people agree, it becomes true.” My question is, “Since when?”


Works Cited

Colbert, Stephen.” The Colbert Report.” New York, NY. 31 July 2006. Web. 30 August 2010. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report- videos/72347/july-31-2006/the-word---wikiality

Vance, Ashley. “$200 Textbook vs. Free. You Do the Math.” The New York Times. Business Day Technology, 31 July 2010. Web. 30 August 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/technology/01ping.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

The Need for Academic Integrity

The need for academic integrity is intrinsic to those of us born before our phones became the lifeline that keeps us connected to the ‘real world’; back when you actually went to the library to research your topic, and the written word was a sacred source that must be cited.   

Fast forward a decade or two...

For today’s generation however, the world’s knowledge is a veritable shmorgishborg, instantaneously available while we Google, Tweet, and Wiki our way through the day.  Instant gratification is the expected norm and our social network considers everything a group project.  That’s not to say that the core values we impart on our students -- honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility -- fall on deaf ears, I’m simply suggesting that it is no longer a passive assumption that the values of academic integrity will naturally be followed or even accepted.  

The tables have seemingly turned towards non-compliance of standardized rules regarding information ownership. The growing need to set things straight again is glaringly apparent. The difficulty lies in determining how to get students to understand that giving credit where credit is due is expected and failure to cite a source demonstrates a lack of respect and responsibility.  Gone is the respect for the original author(s) of the information pilfered; gone is the respect for the teacher who’s been duped into thinking they are reading an original, thoughtful prose based on what she’s taught in the classroom.  More than that, however, they’ve squandered the opportunity to grow and develop as a student by cheating themselves out of knowledge that would have been garnered through thorough research and thoughtful pondering. The need for academic integrity becomes as essential as the need for rules and those who enforce them. A world without rules is chaos and an academic world without integrity is manipulative and self-serving.

An appreciation of academic integrity stems from knowing the rules, demonstrating the rules, understanding the consequences of not following those rules and vigilance in enforcing the rules. An educator can no longer assume that all students have the same respect for information and its sources as in days past. He has to start from where his student is at. Today’s students are faced with a myriad of information sources, all built on one another, intertwined and comingled to the point where the grey area is growing exponentially.  There is no way to rein in the information, so we have to adjust our teaching methods to incorporate the ‘grey area’ and answer the questions that arise to the best of our ability. We must build and continue to foster a cognizance of self-respect in our students and influence them in such a way that the need for academic integrity, once again, becomes an intrinsic part of who they want to be.  “Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking.  There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught.”  ~J.C. Watts