The Mackerel Wrapper

A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.

Friday, September 17, 2010

COMM 150: I still like Wikipedia ...

... but I've got to admit this is funny and it can happen, it can happen.

But notice the bogus stuff about the brown bears in the courtroom went up on Sept. 13 and got taken down Sept. 14. How long does it take for the mistakes that creep into Encyclopaedia Britannica to get corrected?

Hint: According to the Wikipedia article about the Britannica (sorry 'bout that!), the first edition of Brittanica came out in 1768, and the current edition - the 15th - in 1985. Updates are more frequent, though: The most recent print revisions came out in 2007 and 2010.
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1 comment:

Kris10 said...

I still like Wikipedia too. However, I understand why teachers do not like for students to use it as a source when doing research. Any body and everybody can control what information is put into the information on Wikipedia. I could just randomly stick my name in there some where and people might think it means something.

Friday, September 17, 2010 at 11:48:00 AM CDT

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About Me

Springfield (Ill.), United States
I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.