Assignment Idea: December 2009 Archives

I came across this and I am strangely interested.

"Welcome to TwHistory. We believe that history is filled with exciting stories. We also believe that these stories can be told through Twitter; through the people who lived and experienced them. We go through journals, diaries, letters, and other original sources to deliver the day-to-day lives of people who lived through some of histories most exciting times. We broadcast this information through Twitter, and feel this is a new and exciting approach to understanding history. Instead of reading about a month-long campaign in a few hours, you experience it over the course of a month in small 140 character 'Tweets'."

Examples include:

• Gettysburg
• Cuban Missile Crisis
  

Learn more: http://www.twhistory.com/ or watch a Prezi about it (http://prezi.com/u844gbe1oi34/)


How could this be used in Library instruction?

I wonder if you could modify this so people would take on "types of sources" and have them tweet about what would be published about an event.

Take a look:http://newstrust.net/
I think this would be an interesting model for a class assignment/blog. If you had a themed class you could have students build a class bibliography/blog and then have them "rate" the quality of each story. It would be interesting if you could somehow give it a cumulative score so multiple students could give input. I also like how these are categorized (e.g. world, opinion, etc.)--you could do the same by type (academic, popular, etc.) or author (scholar, journalist, etc.)