UberNoodle said:
They do that because of 1) an ingrained distrust by educational institutions for open sources, especially online (a Youth medium), and 2) because kids are generally lazy when it comes to research and they'll paraphrase a Wikipedia article and hand it in! Teachers want the kids to crack open one of those old things called "book", or at least one that doesn't have "RECIPES" or "Harry Pottter" on the cover. That means entering the frightening and uncool cave called "LIBRARY", in which, if the kids suck it up and learn it, valuable knowledge can be gained. Perhaps this is 3), but generally, despite the Net being a conduit for boundless information (unless you are Wikileaks or an "IP infringer", then there are some bounds, sadly), most people daily go to the same limited list of sources. These are usually on their favourite topics and hobbies. The "no Wikipedia" rule by teachers and professors is to force kids to obtain at least some form of useful literacy for study and research, rather than depending on Fast Food aquisition for everything.
See, I would agree with you on that, except that from my experience, teachers have been completely unreasonable with regards to Wikipedia, and while they may point out some legitimate disadvantages, they fail to recognize much of the advantages. In my opinion, the benefits far outweigh the risks with Wikipedia when you know how to use it properly. Reading it is good for getting an overview of the topic. If something seems off or you need more detail, check the original source. For things that don't have a citation, use Google or another search engine to see if the same information comes from substantiated sources. If you can't find anything reputable, then consider whatever unsourced statement you just read bullshit.
Wikipedia is great because it is one comprehensive, organized source of information. Whenever I research a topic, I usually start with Wikipedia, and branch out from there. I can understand teachers prohibiting actually using Wikipedia as a source, the works cited should be the core of the information, the study, the research, the report, ect. I think it should work the same for news sites as well. If possible, you should always cite the original source of the information, not where you heard it from. The news sites, Wikipedia, ect. are just convenient mediums for getting that information to you, but doing good research means going back through that path as deep as possible.
And so far, my school has not taught me any of those research techniques. All they have told me is a bunch of anti-Wikipedia blabber, how to use their stupid, official research engine filled with "approved" stuff, which is extremely retarded. I mean, how can you expect people to become good at research when you essentially hand them a pre-chewed accumulation of information? That's basically doing the research for them. One of the most important aspects of research is to be able to wade through the bullshit, because that's what you are going to find in the real world, bullshit, and you have to learn how to be skeptical of things, double check facts with different sources and identify biases and errors.