As a Social Studies teacher, I understand why this is a hot topic. I once told students that they should not use Wikipedia because much of the information is not reliable because anyone is capable of posting to it. Now, especially with the new career and college readiness standards being implemented, I am starting to allow them to use Wikipedia. As we focus on those higher order thinking questions, I have begin teaching my students to not rely on one source. Students need to understand that in basically every aspect of life they should do their research before forming their opinion. For instance, we do current event articles and I try to make students understand that reporters, news companies, magazines, etc. often lean towards a side and by forming your opinion from one current event you may find yourself leaning too. With research, teachers can let students use whichever resources they want, but force them to use several resources so that they will have to do the research and compare sources to find which sources are most reliable. Wikipedia may be reliable or unreliable in different instances.
