In anticipation of Rosh Hashanah, Chris Bargeron posted a link in Facebook to “Rosh Hashanah 2013:  The Jewish New Year Explained” which had been published by the Huffington Post.  The video on the website was excellent and I used it as the basis for a lesson on audience and purpose I taught this morning in my composition class.  I then assigned students to write an essay inspired by Mr. Bargeron’s recommended video.

In my afternoon history class, I planned to use the video again in order to teach a lesson about dates:   that today’s date is 1 Tishrei 5774, that someone born in France on 6 February 1723 is 11 months older than someone born in England on 6 January 1722, and that 5 September 1752 did not exist in the British Empire.  Because the lesson had been inspired because today is the first day of Rosh Hashanah, I attempted to screen the video that Mr. Bargeron had recommended.  Unfortunately, the wrong video came up.

I assumed I had accidentally hit the wrong link so I opened Mr. Bargeron’s Facebook page and hit the link again.  Again, the same “wrong” video displayed.  I checked the date and discovered that the Huffington Post had updated their website at 10:38am; less than one hour after my first class ended.  The title of the page was the same.  The text on the page was the same.  But the featured video was different.

I turned the inability to show the Rosh Hashanah video into a teachable moment.  I told students that “access date” is one of the requirements in a proper citation because websites can be easily changed.  I also recommended that they should print out copies of any website pages they plan to cite in research papers or other projects.

The fact that websites can be so easily updated is beneficial in many circumstances.  For example, since we launched the  Schoolcraft College History Department website, we have regularly updated the events page; a page that includes important schedules for Schoolcraft College services.

The Learning Assistance Center’s Fall 2103 tutoring schedule was not available until this afternoon and, as such, did not appear on the history department website this morning.  It is there now.  As changes are made in the tutoring schedule throughout the semester, we will be able to easily update the website to keep information current for our students.  Such changes should be applauded.  But what are the implications of the Huffington Post change?

In the class notes I send to students later this evening, I cannot provide a URL for my composition students who might want to review the video while writing their papers.  The video I showed is part of the photo stream that still appears on the Huffington Post website to which Mr. Bargeron linked.  However, given the settings selected by the Huffington Post, it is not possible to link directly to the Rosh Hashanah video which I screened during this morning’s class.

The implications for Mr. Bargeron, the Associate Director at Neighborhood Involvement Program and a licensed independent clinical social worker in the Twin Cities are potentially more serious.  His professional credibility is influenced by his on-line postings and there is no way for the casual reader who clicked on his Facebook recommendation after 10:38am today to realize that they were viewing a different video than the one he had actually recommended yesterday.  They will judge Mr. Bargeron on the video they watched; not the one he intended for them to watch.

Unfortunately, the current (as of the date of this posting) Huffington Post video is not as interesting or as well done as the one recommended by Mr. Bargeron.  Fortunately, the new video is not inappropriate and will not reflect poorly on Mr. Bargeron’s character.

Mr. Bargeron knew what he was recommending when he posted to Facebook yesterday.  However, until I contacted him this afternoon, he was not aware that his recommendation had been changed by the Huffington Post; a change that could have caused serious repercussions for Mr. Bargeron.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Photo Caption:  Chris Bargeron (top)

Postscript:  For an explanation of dates, please consult “September 3:  The Day That Wasn’t.”

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