31 July 2009

We LOVE Wikipedia!

Ok, highbrows. Deal with it. I get a lot of requests every day for information and it's a pretty handy source. Today's inquiries:

The peanut.

Crazy Mom is talking about Civil War history and children have asked what grows in the South besides cotton.

"Peanuts GROW? I thought they were made from ingredients!" Emperor says, bewildered. Which ingredients? "I don't know; I've never made them before! How was I supposed to know!??"

Witch Hazel.

And do witches really use it? And where does it grow?

The Workhouse.

Mom, even on her worst days, can be assured she's not that bad. Elf insisted we look up the "workhouse" after hearing about it in our reading Oliver Twist (the abridged version. With pics).

The History of the Cheez-it.

I wouldn't have believed that there was an article write-up, let alone that people had entire discussion forums on this until I looked it up.

The Wall-nut and the All-Nut.

And is there a difference between the two?

10 comments:

  1. I'm on my way to read about Cheez-its. Sure, I try to eat healthy, and for the most part I do, but I've got to have my Cheez-its.

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  2. LOL Your kids definitely have inquiring minds:) I love wikipedia as well.

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  3. I must admit; I love wikipedia too. In fact today I looked up "emoticon" on it >: P

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  4. Harry, my boys will be *so* glad they inspired you to learn something new today! :]

    Mkm, I think in the "old" days, we either looked it up in the encyclopedia or just listened to Uncle Steve's explanation about things that are "unlookupable."

    Catherine, you're good at those! :5) Well, that was my attempt at making one with a big nose and a happy face!

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  5. I had, "How many eggs do geese lay." Followed immediately by, let's go on the computer and find out... just yesterday. Wikipedia might not be something scholars approve of, but it is great for answering kids questions.

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  6. It is a great resource isn't it!? It's getting harder to make the excuse that we don't know about something or that we don't know the answer to something when we have Wikipedia (and really, ALL of the internet) to look for an answer!

    Hey Harry.. in our house "Cheez-Its" counts as a healthy snack.. a relatively healthy snack anyways!

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  7. I use Wiki all the time
    they are also a great source of photos that are not copyrighted

    the only time I question Wiki is when it comes to facts about present day people

    I have found many errors there, usually posted by someone from a gossip perspective or just not doing their homework

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  8. Julie, I should think the answer would be, "Only one at a time!" LOL

    LAA and family, we had Cheez-its for lunch yesterday. Everyone but Woodjie, because being allergic to milk, he had a Pop-Tart instead. Did you know some Pop-Tarts have milk and some don't? You just have to read the ingredients. :] We don't do that often, but every now and then Mom is tired of peanut butter sandwiches and hot dogs, ok?

    Dianne, I hadn't thought about that. Usually we are looking up things about bugs and whatnot that you would THINK would be politics-neutral.

    One time, I did find something questionable (!!!) and sent it to the wikipedia. I think it was edited by the scholarly person who uses "jizz jizz jizz in my pants nigga" as his screen/editing name, or it appeared to be so when I clicked on the edits tab.

    I got a very courteous letter back from wiki stating that they were fixing the problem right away! And they did!

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  9. I love Wikipedia, too, and use it all the time.

    I think it continues to get better all the time. The few times I have run across questionable information, I try to check as many sources as I can until I am satisfied. But for most things, it's perfectly fine.

    Eileen
    Dedicated Elementary Teacher Overseas (in the Middle East)
    elementaryteacher.wordpress.com

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  10. I've used wikipedia... it has to be thousands of times. But yes, that once I ran across rather shocking "information," dealing with how some political policies were totally right in the middle of some absolutely unrelated article. It was inflammatory, and I have no idea how it got there except that the computers or whatever must be looking for plain old cusses.

    So I sure understand scholars snorting at wikipedia, but I just take wikipedia's answers at the "some guy told me" level. :]

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Non-troll comments always welcome! :)

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