Sometimes when we think about the past, we see history as a collection of FACTS about the past—true things that happened. We think the historian’s job is to collect as many of those FACTS as possible. While FACTS are important, only thinking about facts is like watching a TV show in Black and White: good, but not getting the benefit of all the rich detail of watching in Full Colour. To get the Full Colour experience, historians give MEANING to FACTS, arranging them into a true story about the past. The story might be one of causation, or significance, or how things have stayed the same over time. Thinking about MEANING allows us to see the past in rich, Full Colour detail.

Unfortunately, the medium of the internet CAN prompt us to only see the past only in Black and White, where the internet is a giant textbook of FACTS, waiting for us to find them and pluck them out like a ripe cherry. We CAN forget that the people who put the historical information online are giving MEANING to the FACTS. They want us to see the past in their way—just like any other historical source.

Using historical thinking skills can help us to be critical online—and not just accept what we read as FACTS.

The purpose of this protocol is to prompt students to become more aware of their thinking, so that they can apply their historical thinking skills while working online. This protocol is designed to help students slow down and not just think about websites in binary terms or ‘Black and White’, i.e. trustworthy or not; relevant or not. Instead, this protocol helps students to treat websites like any other historical source, where they consider the ‘Full Colour’ spectrum of how and why a website might be communicating a particular message.