Historical Thinking can be defined as the types of thinking that historians do, when they construct meaning about the people and events of the past. Historical thinking involves examining historical sources and includes, but is not limited to, using historical concepts, such as cause and effect, significance and contestability; historical inquiry, and the evaluation and construction of historical texts.

However, moving online often changes things: when students have as much information as they could possibly want, history can be reduced to retrieving the correct information, rather than attending to questions like ‘who wrote it and why?’.

Tools that emphasise productivity and enable rapid completion of tasks enhance the 'process information' view of history. When it is so easy for students to produce something that looks like they are thinking historically, teachers need new ways of gauging students’ understanding. If any of these points resonate with you, please try one of the teaching ideas and give us some feedback.