Will Richardson observes that the coverage of the election protests in Iran—coming to us via twitter, raw video, and personal blogs—illustrates that we are in a whole new ball game when it comes to media literacy. In his formulation, we are all editors now. Are kids equipped for this role? Richardson’s not so sure:
I know that we should have been teaching these skills and processes all along with every piece of information we read or shared. But the reality is that we as an educational system haven’t been doing a very good job of it. Right now, however, we and our kids simply can’t get away with not having these skills any longer. I know the school year is over for many, but for those that are still in session, welcome to a teachable moment about the world, democracy, technology, media, and most of all, participation.