All Things Wiki

Many of us use the website Wikipedia.org on a weekly or even daily basis, but I am guessing that not many of us know its origins. I chose to research the past, present and possible future of this open source encyclopedia for a "web paper" that I created for the Website Fundamentals course that I took here at DU.
What I found was both surprising and interesting. Did you know that the funding for the site allegedly came from pornography? Or that there has been national scandal linked to the defacement of certain biographical articles? Well if not, you can see for yourself:

http://www.du.edu/~dlastowk/wikipedia/

Aside from its questionable past, I think that the Wikipedia site also raises some interesting questions regarding open access to the internet and the implications of such freedom. If anyone has any questions about either the site or the course, please let me know. Cheers.

Enough Wings to Fly

This post is a shorter one, but I thought this was kinda neat.

Until recently, I was the GSFF representative for a few Grad programs here at DU, and one of my responsibilities was to forward DU announcements to my respective grad students lists. One such announcement that I forwarded was for a reception for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Ally community of DU.

One international graduate student replied to me and thanked me for sending the announcement, but regretted that they could not come because, in the student's words, "I'm afraid I have not grown enough wings to fly with them!"

The comment struck me, partially because of the student's choice of words. In teaching ESL, I'm always struck by the unique ways that non-native English speakers use the language. Also, I was impressed by the student's acknowledgement of their lack of understanding of the GLBTIA community.

I hope that the student does someday grow enough wings to fly.

Anyway, thought it was interesting.

Peace,
Naomi