Michael Bess has an interesting opinion of encyclopedias. Perhaps I have had teachers or professors who hold the same opinion, but I have never heard them express it. I have always been led to believe or just assumed that educators don't like Wikipedia because it can be seen as unreliable. Once Michael Bess verbalized why he doesn't like encyclopedias, it makes sense. Compiling the information takes a lot more work and teaches the researcher more than just having facts presented to them in the form of an encyclopedia article.
Michael Bess's History 200 class is a good example of the usefulness of web 2.0 in teaching. I think that it is best to learn from the real world, and Wikipedia is the real world. Anyone who wants to can access it and edit its contents. Web 2.0 is what makes things like the behind the scenes of an encyclopedia available to everyone.
I agree with Michael Bess on what I think is his main point. The articles are useful when you need a few quick facts, but a lot more can be learned from the debates that go on behind the scenes.
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Yes, Bess's point about using what goes on behind the scenes is important. I think it's part of helping students learn to evaluate information instead of just accepting and copying, don't you?
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