Modeling for the future

Of the articles that we were assigned to read for this week, there was one that really stuck with me. Bill Ferriter's article on learning with blogs and wikis discussed the use of these valuable sources as learning tools and especially as a form of professional development. Although I can definitely see the use of them in terms of being able to discuss with countless other educators, administrators, and parents about classroom concerns and different methods that work and do not, I am brought back to thoughts of the validity and reliability of wikis and blogs. When actually thinking about why I have these concerns, I realized that not trusting the internet as a source was something that was instilled in me by my teachers and professors throughout my own education. Although this was not a major concern until I reached highschool and especially college, I was always told that websites and wikis are not reliable and valid resources. In fact, I had quite a few college professors who would automatically lower the grade of a paper if I had used one as such. Ferriter talks about being able to communicate with Bob Heiny, a long-time educational researcher, via blogs. What boggles me is that had Bob Heiny written an article that was published in a journal, I would consider it a valid source however, I was taught to disregard his opinion and knowledge from research if it were posted on a blog or wiki. I can only think of one teacher/professor who actually took the time and a whole day's lesson to discuss how to use the internet for research and how to be critical of information found on the web instead of just suggesting websites that search for journal artciles, an example being http://scholar.google.com/. Seeing as how the web has become such an integral part of our lives and how often people, students in particluar, will search for knowledge using wikipedia and websites that a search engine produces, I feel that what that one professor of mine had taken time to do is so important for all educators to do in their classrooms. It is easy to say that wikipedia is not a valid source however most wikipedia articles have reference sections and citations with every sentence. What makes this any different that using a journal article?
This article really made me reflect on my own uses of wikis and blogs as well as their uses in a classroom. Seeing as how technology is being used with children younger and younger, whether it be at school or at home, I feel that this skill of being able to sift through material that is found on the web and deciding what is valid and reliable should be taught to younger and younger students. I can definitely see how to approach this matter with young adults and older however, I would love to be able to sit through a conference or lecture on how to use these sources and teach this particluar lesson to children. Even though those children might eventually enter a research university and be told by professors that these sources are not to be used, hopefully through time we can have educators that were shown the value or these sources and won't be discouraged to use them for educational means as I was.