The project I will undertake for this semester will be the History themed projected discussed in my earlier post. Knowing this I have undergone some research into the ways history is being taught in the UK. Looking at a few articles from major national newspapers the main debate is what should we teach? Many historians state that we must learn about these key dates over others. The problem with this is that many major events get left out. Also if we only teach about the Second World War, pupils will miss out on how the Nazi Regime came to power and how the treaty of Versailles was a major factor in the start of the war.

Learning from this research my project will not only show the key dates of certain events but will also feature the events which lead up to such event. For example when students look up the 2nd World War there will be an option allowing the students to go further back in time and look at the events which lead to the war (End of WWI, Treaty of Versailles, Wall Street Crash, Rise of Nazism and the failure of the Wiemar Republic). This will give a further understanding of history and how it all links.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11915034/The-trouble-with-choosing-what-history-to-teach.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/how-should-we-teach-british-history-950804.html

Doing some further research an Of-stead report revealed some alarming statistics:

25% of all schools no longer teach history as a discrete subject in year 7

• 30% of comprehensives spend less than one hour a week on history in the years up to age 13

• More GCSE candidates took design and technology than history last year

• More A-level candidates took psychology.

Found at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/mar/29/history-school-crisis-disconnected-events

Personally these statistics are very shocking to me, even though my project wont be able to change the curriculum it may still be able to get more people interested in history. As it will use modern Technology which we all have access to it will allow students to explore history in their own time without having to be tested. My project will also be able to bring history t their living rooms. This is because I plan to have a feature which will show the user what their home town looked like in the past, by using archive photos, drawings and records. This will make history a more personal experience and hopefully show the users how history has effected us all and is an important subject to study.

At first I had a few ideas on what I wanted to do. My first idea was creating a new way of teaching history to students and children. The current curriculum teaches history in separate and stagnant events and don’t show the links between them. Also going from my own experience World War I and World War II are not taught in enough detail.

Some of my research and inspirations have came from some YouTube videos and News articles:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/8377916/History-teaching-fails-to-give-pupils-proper-view-of-the-past-says-watchdog.html

My second idea was to produce a piece that taught people about new ways to power the planet. It will show people new ways on how we can produce renewable energy, one of the most interesting if these new inventions is using algae to create electricity.

My final idea was to create a piece which can show the world how we can create carbon free cities and the technology behind. Some ideas would be showing solar powered roads, factories that capture their own CO2 and re-pump it into enclosed forests. This idea was one of my weakest but it could be very fun to investigate into these new technologies.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/22/solar-panel-road-tourouvre-au-perche-normandy

Welcome to University of Lincoln Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!