Comparison Of Ponder And Wikipedia

Introduction:

Due to technological advances many websites such as Ponder and Wikipedia are being used, and have grown to be a primary source for research and reading. Ponder is a browser add-on that highlights words, phrases, and sentences and gives “micro-responses” to each of these. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that is written by volunteer editors. These new forms of research have become more evident in the classroom. However, are they really better than the more conventional forms of research, that is, using books and physical texts? Over the course of the semester we have studied and applied several different methods of research. By using a Likert Scale Survey, we will be able to assess these methods of reading and research.

Each student was asked to read two articles, “Wikipedia’s Hostility to Women,” and “The Undue Weight of ‘Truth’ on Wikipedia”. One of the articles was to be read using the Ponder add-on tool, and the other using a physical text. Subsequently, the students were then told to reflect on each of these methods, and to take an 18 question Likert Scale Survey. In addition, the students were told to identify a Wikipedia article that needed editing, or to create an article/page that does not exist. Then they were told to propose any changes that they felt was necessary in order to meet Wikipedia’s standard for the “Perfect Article”. Next, they did research in order to find valid sources to substantiate their proposed changes. Finally, they were asked to reflect on their experience with doing

However, there has been no proof that they are more effective than using the more customary form of reading and research, that is, using physical texts. This experiment was to assess the two methods of reading and research. We proposed that the students would find that online reading and research would be easier and more helpful. However, as a result of the experiment, we can conclude that students find reading online to be much less effective than reading texts, and that doing research online is easier. This is most likely due to the student’s preference of taking notes and annotating because it is more difficult to keep track of notes on an electronic text than it is on a physical text. In addition, it was easier to do research online due to the vast and easy accessibility of data. One of the possible sources of error is that every student read the articles in different environments. If a student read in a more distracting environment, then most likely that student did not effectively read. Furthermore, it is recommended that a future experiment should be done with a much larger sample size and with a control group so that the data will have something to be compared