I’m with you. I routinely head to Wikipedia in class when a question comes up that I’m not sure of the answer to or just want to show the kids how to find things out for themselves. It’s an invaluable tool. And I agree, it’s not necessarily appropriate to be cited (depending on grade level and expectations) but it does give you a cursory overview of a topic.

I discovered during exams that our school’s IP (we’re running private IP’s behind the NAT firewall) had been restricted due to abuse of wikipedia. Once again, we don’t do enough teaching about how to use/respect these new tools.

I would like to defend the Wiki… as well. My experience has been that it does serve a useful purpose and is generally accurate. I chose a few subjects about which I know something and looked them up. I found well-organized and pretty complete information and felt re-assured about the place as a general source. I think that your readers may have a similar experience if they use my technique.

Then again, we had a few challenges last year when a student or students decided to trash our school and add many negative comments to the entry for the school (imagine that :–))!

Best to you and yours…