"Often students are looking for a site where they can go to the quickest and the most information with minimal effort," said Julie Caccamise, a social studies teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington. "Sometimes they're not interested in the difficult work, which is sorting through the information and deciding what is important and how valuable it is."

Caccamise, who has taught for 18 years, used to be against students' using Wikipedia because the information could be modified by anyone, making it unreliable. Now, she sees more value in the site. The citations at the end of entries can give students additional ideas about where to search.

"Often it offers an interesting starting point for students when they are doing research," she said.