PatSine

In my earliest professional days I was a middle school and then a high school social studies teacher. One of the things that was hard to teach to kids was just what differentiated a primary source from a secondary source. We had the then correct answers comparing diaries and letters to newspapers to our own textbooks. Little did I know that it was actually pretty easy then!

The world has been abuzz since last weekend about the Iran election, especially on Twitter. Many learned about hashtags this week with the news about #CNNfail and #IranElections.

But back to the issue of primary sources. Joshua Kucera raises the question What if Twitter is leading us all astray in Iran? And Mark Drapeau's post, How the Iranian Elections Turned “CNN Fail” Into a Media Success has this quote about how Twitter is now reflecting public opinion.

Word of mouth discussions, whether based in fact or fiction, can be very powerful. Whereas mainstream media used to dictate to people what was important, now vocal people at the grassroots can to some extent dictate to the media what is important to them. And if they’re not satisfied, they’ll do their best to fry the news outlet(s) (as happened with #CNNfail).

As I watch all of this, I wonder if it's easier or harder now to teach the concept of "primary sources," but what a rich environment to do it in.