In our first years of school, teachers emphasized the importance of sharing. Then, it was primarily focused on sharing toys, food, and friends. Growing up in the 21st century, this notion of sharing spread into the realm of information.
The emergence of Wikipedia on everyone’s Bookmarks (or Favorites) has shown the benefits of sharing knowledge. Look what a vast and accessible network of information WE have created!
Many may cite the fact that the brief clippings of information are incomplete or unverified (it is shunned by bibliographies and footnotes), but if Wikipedia did not exist this inessential information would not reach the populace any other way.
Education is about spreading knowledge. Wikipedia has taken this idea and morphed it to our time, to our internet, and allowed people to enlighten themselves with previously foreign tidbits about randomness such as Patty Boyd and the official language of the Phillipines.
The uses of Wikipedia have come to include the jumping off point for research projects and the landing point for intellectual quests. Regardless if people read whole entries or merely one line, the fact remains that information is being shared in the most positive of ways.
The sharing of children’s toys was the building block that started our education. Imagine what Wikipedia will spawn as it shares something far more important and worthy than toys.
