I tagged along to a
conference on college and university teaching that was hosted in
Traverse City, Michigan last week and naturally couldn't resist dropping in on a session entitled "Using Wikipedia To Teach Critical Thinking Skills". The speaker, Michael Lorenzen, is affiliated with the Park Library of Central Michigan University and is currently the
Editor of the Michigan Library Association Forum.
I will reserve my specific remarks on Michael's talk until I am prepared to do a formal style of review, perhaps saving it for the blog — when and if I get around to it. And you all know how that is.
As a generic observation, however, this talk made me slightly more aware than I was before of just how many myths about Wikipedia persist among a population whose critical thinking skills we might have expected to be rather better honed than the average member of the public. It now seems likely to me that I have been spoiled by the level of e-street savvy that prevails in my own local circle. No doubt on account of my own e-fluence. No doubt.
No matter — honing the hone-challenged is what we do.
With regards to his own experience, Michael asserted that he created over 200 articles on Wikipedia. I did not think to ask whether he edited under his own name or not and I cannot find a
User:Michael Lorenzen, so maybe we can find his contributions under some mutation of his
nom réel. Or not.
There is, perhaps not incidentally,
an AFD that ended in deleting an article on a person who appears to be the same Michael Lorenzen.
To be continued …
Jon Awbrey
This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: 
Academic Perspectives On Wikipedia, Still Clueless After All These Years ?
