User:LadyDiotima

Hi

I'm an academic, and my current area of research is about collaborative learning. I've been pretty annoyed about how a certain page has been written recently - I think both sides of the debate have been bigoted and incredibly small minded, and that has led me to set up my own account.

I've been generally sceptical about Wikipedia, and these last few days have reinforced everything I have always thought. It is only as good as the last edit, and is certainly not fit for inclusion in an academic bibliography. However, some of the references are worth following so, if you are really lost, have no help whatsoever from your lecturers and are looking to scrape a bare pass in an assignment, look no further!

Sorry to rant, but my past and recent experience have not led me to be a fan. I'll probably hang around though as this shows me why my teaching model works and this does not.

I'm finding this particularly hilarious at the moment:

"You are invited to the 45th London Wikimedia meetup on Sunday 8 May 2011 from 13:00 onwards in Penderel's Oak, Holborn. [hide] Do you wish to encourage students and academics to engage with Wikipedia? Sign up as an ambassador for your campus before 15 May!"

Erm, nooooo, I do NOT want this! I explicitly and specifically do not want this! I would like academics to carry on doing what they have always done, which is to add to the body of peer reviewed research, not waste time here. And I'd like students to be able to find reputable answers to questions rather than looking at thickipedia. To that end, I spend a lot of my time working on OER projects, and collaborating with fellow academics to improve resources on VLEs.

Cheers, LD :-)