A Story worth telling is worth telling well. A story worth reading is worth reading into.

Our students have stories to tell, or type, or vlog, or use any other means of communication available today, which deserve to be told. 

Sometimes it seems that the student sitting quietly, or not so quietly in your classroom couldn't possibly have something that interesting or important to say. Imagine that each one of them does though. Something compelling, something insightful, something gut-wrenching, something hilarious, or that they will have one of those things to say soon. Or even that they may teach someone else the skills to do so.  This is important, and therefore urgent. 

The internet and social media can be a place of chaos.
Unrest. Discontent. Collective narrative. Beauty. Entertainment. Comedy. Influence. It's the last wild west, the last frontier. Arming them with the skills of citizen journalism will gain them audience and reinforce their messages and their voice. It's guerilla warfare from your keyboard at times, especially now, when the world seems to be a bit askew.

These students are not separate from that given their access to everything and anything on the internet. I agree with Esther Wojcicki when she says "Schools need to help student learn these skills, not block and censor the Internet." And it's not even about blocking what they can access on the internet, it's also blocking what they can say and how they can share their stories when we chose not to teach citizen journalism. Censoring what they see is equal to silencing what they have to say.

The pros of teaching citizen journalism are endless. Giving students the tools and skills to amplify their voices and stories is essentially good ethical practice by your students. 

This is a powerful sword, and it has a double edge. I see a negative outcome for a student with a voice, a voice and mind that sees the opportunity to compel their audience in a crafted way that feels and sounds like fact, or logic, but is a rationalization of selected materials and evidences to tell an untrue or a heavily skewed story in an effort to play to audiences sympathies and narratives, to their own personal gain or agenda, at the expense of others. History is full of these characters. The internet, social media, the news is full of it. Think Voldemort or Umbridge! 

Teaching the skills of citizen journalism isn’t just about how to access and share information—it’s also about critically examining what we choose to consume, and asking whether we’re selecting it simply because it supports our own narrative.

“The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.” Dumbledore. 

My caution is to err on the side of educating my students how and who and what, and to judge for themselves based on a series of tools and skills that make up citizen journalism. 

Citizen journalism reflects back at us, our own truths, biases, manipulations, and desires. And in that way Dumbledore has one more piece of advice, "It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts." And we must ask, does this give us knowledge or truth?