Artifact: ETEC 511 Scholarly Essay – Is Wikipedia Unethical?

Due to my interest in Philosophy, understanding educational technology from an ethical perspective played an important role in the growth of my MET tree because I believe educators should help learners consider the ethical implications of technology so that the students can use technology to aid and not harm others as well as themselves.

To represent my learning in ETEC 511: Foundations of Educational Technology, I decided to use my scholarly essay titled “Is Wikipedia Unethical?” I chose this topic because I wanted to find out if the Wiki technology did more harm than good to our students in terms of ethicality and how educators can use Wikipedia to support student learning. This artifact stemmed from
my investigation of Cyberethics in ETEC 510.

From this assignment, I learned that educators should be aware of how the Internet could be used by those (in power) who wish to propagate certain agendas (e.g., political or personal) through dis/misinformation and what can be done to help learners gain the skills they need to be critical of the information they receive. By involving students in the knowledge construction process mediated by Web 2.0 technology through activities such as the one carried out by Professor Chris Jensen’s class in creating a hoax on Wikipedia (Young, 2008, as cited in Chen, 2012), students can understand the importance of information ethics and become the content contributors who safeguard the ethicality of knowledge and information disseminated online. The emphasis on digital literacy is also evident in my ETEC 531 media production and media study guide artifacts.

As I reviewed my essay in light of new understandings gained from ETEC 531: Curriculum Issues in Cultural and Media Studies on media and technology theories, I also realized how Jimmy Wales’ firm stance on Wikipedia’s editing policies such as Neutral Point of View, Verifiability, and No Original Research reflects my belief in the neutrality of technology from a theoretical perspective. The course of human affairs is not affected by technology itself but rather the way in which technology is used to achieve certain goals. This is in contrast against technological determinism, which is exemplified by statements such as “the medium is the message” (McLuhan, 2001, 2006) and “Wikipedia can be shown to be an unethical resource unworthy of our respect” (Gorman, 2007, p. 274, as cited in Chen, 2012).

The particular set of skills I gained from this assignment includes:

• Theory development through critical analysis and synthesis
• Cataloguing literature and collecting narrative from a variety of sources as evidence to support the argument
• Understanding of ethical implications in technology-integrated lesson design

References

Chen, J. (2012). Is Wikipedia unethical? [Unpublished graduate essay]. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Gorman, G. E. (2007). A tale of information ethics and encyclopedias; or, is Wikipedia just another internet scam? Online Information Review, 31(3), 273-276. doi:10.1108/14684520710773050

McLuhan, M. (2001, 2006). The medium is the message [PDF document]. The New Media Reader, 203-209.

Young, N. (Host). (2008, December 5). Full interview with Chris Jensen [MP3 file]. Spark CBC Podcast. Podcast retrieved from http://podcast.cbc.ca/spark/spark_20081205_chrisjensen.mp3