Using Wikipedia

I love this site for its abundance of information and accessibility. Almost without exception it is the first sight listed in all my searches and I have found it to be an excellent starting point for student research. With my year 11 and 12 students I spend a lot of time on musical analysis, aspects of style, historical influences as well as the details of composers' lives and careers. Wikipedia is just the best "first stop" resource for the students. It provides great articles that cover almost everything they need to know to get started and usually points them in the direction of more information should they require it.

It's true, sometimes the comments are shallow, based in opinion rather than scholarship, but often they are insightful and can help students develop perspective. I recently had senior students put together their own research pack on the life and works of Anton Dvorak, composer of the great New World Symphony. Through Wikipedia they were able to piece together his life journey, and in particular the years spent in New York and his devotion to the music of the Native Americans. This was very unexpected and fascinating to them. Dvorak was Czech after all.

Wikipedia is also my best friend when I am trying to prepare LEP's in a rush on material with which I am not 100% familiar. I also like the fact that discussion pages are in a state of constant update. Of course authenticity is important, and while the articles may not all be of sophisticated levels of scholarship, they are covered by the creative common license agreement.

I did not develop my musical knowledge bank on Wikipedia. I did it the hard way, in libraries full of very thick books, and in journals and Record stores that cost me a fortune. So far my students have never served me up false information found on Wikipedia. I find it to be a reliable information source, all the more useful because information is concise, clear and accessible. It is also one of the few sights to which students can go to read what other students have already discovered about their research topic. That alone is valuable, as it creates a sense of shared experience that validates the task while also encouraging their further investigations.

I give Wikipedia 5 stars and will continue to use it as both a teaching and motivational tool.