I guess we're not the only ones

While catching up with my feed of the Resource Shelf, I came across this link to an entry in Andy Carvin's blog about a school that has been banned from editing Wikipedia articles after repeated acts of vandalism. The comments in response to Carvin's blog entry reveal just how pervasive the Wikipedia vandalism problem has become in many high schools. I was plenty annoyed when similar hijinks went on right under my nose one day during a lesson I was teaching on website evaluation. But I like to think that our students are generally more respectful than the students at these other schools, though I may be overly optimistic.

I also like to think that the absence of filtering and other artificial barriers in our environment means that the temptation to vandalize (or download pornography or otherwise behave inappropriately online) loses its luster. I'm sure other factors like school size and student-teacher ratio come into play. Or maybe I'm all wet about the rate of vandalism perpetrated by Uni students. But, you know, I don't think I am. Let me know if you think otherwise.