Talk:Wikis for children
Disposable Encyclopedia
- the initial idea is here.
I agree with Astirmays comments, and hopefully I've tingled some little bug on the idea :)
Maybe the term disposable is not one that best describes or embodies the objectives, but it does call attention to the fact that for each child, in some personal way, the knowledge of previous generations just doesn't exist, and that it's upto him/her to build it. In some way, for every child, knowledge is a green field to build upon. And what better place to build that knowledge but a personal wikipedia-like repository that can be co-edited with other children doing exactly the same thing?
When we are learning about math, we start with a very small piece of all possible math subjects. For starters, we only know about the natual numbers and addition. All our math is based on those two simple (and limited) concepts. We don't learn about subtraction, and when we do, we always do it so that (a - b) > 0 (given that we ignore the existence of negative numbers). At each stage in the learning process we tend to think in absolutes (there is no number such that 5 + x = 3, or more advanced there must be something wrong because x2 = -1 doesn't exist!, etc). And yes, we are lied about math throughout our school years... or rather, there have been omitions... helpful ones that allow us to discover 'better' or more 'complete' truths.
So although the articles cited above in Wikipedia embody a 'greater' truth about maths, it doesn't serve the needs of a child trying to achieve knowledge and understanding on the subject—and every child will need to repeat that learning process.
I haven't really thought out the transition out of this discardable encyclopedia and into the realm of real encyclopedias, but don't see it too different from the way that children outgrow their school textbooks and start doing library research.
Just a final comment, it's not about 'cleaning up' any particular encyclopedia of 'unwanted content'. The idea is to have in a particular school (say grades 1st-9th) you actually have nine editions running in parallel—each grade will have their own. And each started from 'scratch'. In the end, the encyclopedia will also be something like the yearbook as there will be probably many sections not necessarily dedicated to academic subjects, but also to the social and other activites within the school or community (even the school newspaper could be used to edit in this format!) --Xavi 14:15, 4 February 2007 (EST)
