In the article “The Encyclopedia Must Fail!” Raval discusses how Wikipedia has evolved from its inception a decade ago from an “encyclopedia that anyone could write” to an open source platform with diverse, innovative contributions. As digital culture and literacy has become the norm, traditional encyclopedias such as Encyclopedia Britannica have ceased publication, while Wikipedia has grown to include several languages, accessibility on various types of devices, and other media applications to enhance knowledge production. In her assessment of improving Wikipedia in a “post-Wikipedia” world, Raval believes that Wikipedia should further consider the diversity of its contributors, particularly relating to gender diversity and volunteer encouragement. Upon reading Raval’s commentary, I was struck how my own digital literacy in the realm of education has mirrored Wikipedia’s development, both as a teacher and student. Furthermore, my perception of how one gains access to knowledge in the 21st century has both changed and been challenged.
As an undergraduate student in a history seminar in 2001, I distinctly remember how I first encountered Wikipedia while researching the music styles in Weimar Germany. Although I intended to conduct research in the library stacks for “concrete” information, I also hoped to do preliminary research on the internet. While the internet was in use at the time, it was certainly not the vast tool that we know and use today. Interestingly, an article accredited to “Wikipedia” offered the most thorough information on the subject. When I began compiling my bibliography to submit, neither my professor nor my MLA reference book could tell me how to cite such a digital source. As Wikipedia gained popularity in the coming years, I remember how professors deemed Wikipedia “unreliable” and discouraged its use, while peers searched for comparable digital resources, only to cite Wikipedia as one of the best. While I rarely use Wikipedia for my own academic research projects, it is refreshing to see how far it has come and far it can further evolve. I am particularly intrigued by Raval’s endeavor to compose articles that defy what is considered main-stream knowledge, as well as her discussion of how teams can collaborate on volunteer projects for Wikipedia.
Although I tend utilize Wikipedia as a student, I must confess that it’s an invaluable tool for my job as a high school teacher, particularly when I need a quick historical or cultural reference point for a theme, lesson, or unit. In addition, I recognize and realize that my own students, who have grown up as digitally literature users, peruse Wikipedia quite often for their own work. This fact that has allowed me to consider how I might better engage with digital platforms familiar to my current and future students. With the discovery of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Educator tools, I am motivated to teach with Wikipedia and its associated projects in the world language classroom.
For example, one platform that I could possibly use for an advanced German class is the Wikibook, which focuses on creating books. In our Grimm’s fairy tale unit this upcoming January, for example, students could re-write a fairy tale in German as a class. With a Wikibook, we could create a collaborative class project accessible to other German language classrooms. On the transnational scale, it could be feasible to team with an English class in German speaking classroom to offer a bilingual version. Another interesting platform could be Wikinews in German, which focuses on news reporting. In lower level classes, students could work collaboratively to ascertain headlines and current events in Germany.
When considering to teach with Wikipedia or an associated digital platform in the world language classroom, it would be essential for students to understand the global or open-source nature of the end product. With this in mind, the educator should establish concrete learning objectives, which could include, but not be limited to: creating a product with a diverse audience in mind, recognizing the global scale of Wiki-products, developing collaborative skills with peers at home and in the Wiki-sphere (which also transition to a real, globalized society), and valuing feedback and edits from a diverse audience. In turn, as a teacher, I would need to consider how best to utilize the tools provided to me as an educator, whether through continuing education, peer educator collaboration, or Wiki-tutorials available to the education community. In keeping both student and teacher objectives for the use of digital platforms in the classroom, the teacher could develop an innovative curricular tool, which is no longer deemed “unreliable.” In sum, I believe that Raval draws several valid conclusions regarding how Wikipedia can further improve regarding diversity, a perspective which has certainly inspired me to consider using Wiki-platforms in my own world language classroom.
That censors tried to prevent Bama from publishing her article on Wikipedia shows how far women in many third world countries have to go. Having been robbed of their actual voices, Dalit females’ cyber voices are muted as well. Grewal and Kaplan warn the reader about committing the fallacy of “rescuing” the third world woman, and Spivak warns against “the colonial project of saving the brown woman from her own kind”? Are you kidding me? So is it ok for a brown-skinned person to save a brown woman from an abusive husband or a child from prostitution? The greater danger to helping an abused woman, I think, is to let the third-world woman speak about her abuse, and then to let her words drop to the ground. Could it be that those who accuse westerners of helping afflicted woman are the ones who are sitting on top of the caste systems and enjoy the “epistemological luxury” of thinking in first-world abstractions (Jameson)? One has to draw a line somewhere.