History Skills Blog

One of the most common mistakes made by students when analysing sources is to confuse ‘perspective’ and ‘bias’. While the two analysis skills are related, they are very different. This article will, hopefully, make the distinction between the two clear so that students will never again confuse the two.

It has now been twenty years since I graduated high school and it is amazing how different the world of education has become. I remember relying solely on pens, lined exercise books and class texts. That was all. Computers were still new and there was only one in my classroom, which nobody knew how to use.

As a teacher who enjoys finding new ways to integrate technology in the classroom, I would love to share some of my favourite digital tools with you.

I have been using Windows devices, particularly Microsoft Surfaces for all of the eight years I have been teaching (and I have written about why this is the case before in this blog post).

When using historical sources in class, both teachers and students know that they need to ‘analyse and evaluate’ them. But what do these two words mean? What is the difference between ‘analysis’ and ‘evaluation’?

For the last three years, I have been lucky enough to have been awarded as a Microsoft Innovative Education Expert (otherwise known as a MIEE). This means that I get to hear about Microsoft’s latest education initiatives and give feedback to the company from a teacher’s perspective. It is an incredibly valuable experience, one that is open to all educators.

As a History teacher, it will come as no surprise that I think that studying the past is one of the most enjoyable things we can do. However, I frequently get asked by students, teachers and even my own friends why someone would invest so much time in people and events that haven’t existed for a very long time.

I thought I would summarise my typical answers to these people in today’s blog post.