Info Literacy Coaching Playbook: Use Wikipedia, Just Don't Cut Your Arm Off...

Knives can be dangerous, but we use knives because they're incredibly useful tools. Giving a sharp knife to a pre-K child is probably less than wise, but the benefits of knife use by those trained in the safe use of knives so outweigh the potential harms that parents all over the planet hand sharp bladed objects to children. Because parents care, most don't hand over a cleaver and scream, "CHOP AWAY, CHILD! CHOP AWAY!" Moms and dads take deep breaths, and go about the sometimes terrifying task of teaching their children to fillet, dice, and pare.

Used well, Wikipedia, is truly one of the transformative information tools of our time. Students, though, need to be taught how to use Wikipedia in ways that won't leave them heading home at the end of a school day with missing cognitive limbs. This fantastic Cooperative Library Instruction Project tutorial: Using Wikipedia for Academic Research explains it all extremely well!