Encyclopedia Britannica vs. Wikipedia Infographic - very interesting

 

Encyclopedia Britannica announced that it was cancelling future publication of it's print edition due to falling sales. I'm not sure too many people were surprised considering the internet has become a free, on-demand resource for most people. The Encyclopedia Britannica was 32 volumes, $1,395, and outdated before you got it in your house.

Wikipedia is one of the reasons print, and even online subscription based, encyclopedias are failing. There are also millions of web sites that have information and resources that are interactive and free.

I remember my parents getting us an encyclopedia and being so happy I didn't have to bike to the library as much any more. Now, I can get more information than that in my smartphone. Online resources are constantly updated, link to other resources, and can be interactive with video, audio, and activities. It seems like textbooks are, or should be, going the way of the Dodo along with the encyclopedia.

The infographic below is a comparison of some data about Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica.

Infographic courtesy of Statista.


Related:

What I use with Physics classes instead of textbook

Resources to Replace Textbooks

Android Smartphone and Apps I use as an educator

9 Tools For Using Wikipedia in the Classroom - great idea

Edudemic, a great site for educational ideas and resources, has a great article entitled "9 Tools for Using Wikipedia in the Classroom."

The article discusses how to use Wikipedia in the classroom in some great ways. These ideas where developed by psychology students as a cool way to use Wikipedia in course writing assignments. Some of the ideas and tools:

• browse Wikipedia for articles that need work - clarifications, citations, fact checking
• help pages on using Wikipedia
• a Wikipedia assignment wizard for teachers
• a feedback tool
• discussion forum on educators using Wikipedia in the classroom
• support for student peer review
• support for student work
• a suggested timeline for using Wikipedia in the classroom
• a student activity page

These are some great tools and ideas for using Wikipedia in the classroom. Many teachers do not allow students to use Wikipedia as a single source, or even as a source, for their work, but I think that Wikipedia has a lot of good information and the idea of having students research pages and then make changes, citations, and error corrections is a great lesson idea.