Spartacus Blog

Technology and the History Classroom: Should the Teaching Profession Embrace AI?

The In 1977 I began my PGCE course at Sussex University. I was 32 years old, and I was a late entrant to the profession. The following year I got my first job teaching history at Heathfield, an old secondary modern school that had recently been converted into a comprehensive school. Like many new teachers I was not impressed with the textbooks that were being used at the time and began producing my own. In 1980 I joined with a small group of teachers and academics to form the Tressell Publishing Cooperative. The main objective of the group was to publish printed booklets. (1)

Members of the Tressell Cooperative would meet every Monday night at my house in Brighton where we would discuss the production of new teaching materials. In 1982 one of our members asked if a friend of his, a primary school head teacher, could attend the Monday meeting. We were all shocked when he suggested that we should start publishing computer programs for the classroom. At that time none of us owned a computer and treated his suggestion with some hostility. We were passionately committed to book learning.

The head teacher suggested we visited his school to see how the computer could be used in the classroom. A small group of us agreed to do this and we watched some primary school children using Granny's Garden on the BBC Micro B computer. Created by Mike Matson, a primary school teacher from Devon, the game takes place in the Kingdom of the Mountains. The aim is to find the six missing children of the King and Queen, while avoiding the evil witch, by solving puzzles. (2)

Mike Matson later recalled why he created Granny's Garden: "I was deputy head at a school in Devon. At an evening meeting I persuaded the Parent-Teacher's Association to buy a computer for the school. The next day, the rest of the staff went ape. They were thinking about how many football shirts they could have bought with the money. From then on, the pressure was on to prove that this thing was worth having. I looked at the software out there, and it was all written by people who had no idea how to motivate kids. So I got hold of my own BBC B, two weeks before the school, and decided to teach myself how to program. Just so there'd have some decent stuff ready for when the school's computer arrived. Granny's Garden basically came about because the UK government pledged a half-price computer to any school that had at least two members of staff trained to use it." (3)

I was not terribly impressed by Granny's Garden, and I found the graphics extremely crude compared to the lovely illustrations found in children's books. However, it was not what I saw on the screen that took my breath away, it was the expressions of wonder on the faces of the children. They were genuinely excited by the fact that the computer was reacting to the decisions that they were making. When you spent your days writing, there was something magical about using a computer, which was far more dynamic and interactive. As interactivity had been one of the objectives of Tressell to provide interactive material it seemed only right that we should become involved in producing computer programs.

On the way home I decided that I wanted to become involved in what was to my mind going to be an educational revolution. What is more, as the large educational publishers did not appear to be interested in the market, it gave the opportunity for classroom teachers to be involved in its early development.

Into the Unknown

Tressell established a small working group to create our first educational simulation. We decided to create the appropriately named, Into the Unknown. It had originally been a board game that my brother, David Simkin, had produced in his second year of teaching in 1976. It was later one of the first products published by Tressell. It seemed the obvious subject to turn into a computer simulation.

A member of the group, Alistair Pike, who was teaching history in Crawley, offered to have a go at turning the board game into a computer program. We were aware that most history departments would only have at best one BBC B computer available to use in the classroom. Therefore, with only two children using the computer, we had to produce printed materials for the rest of the class to use. (4)

Into the Unknown was published in January 1984, it received enthusiastic reviews. Dave Futcher, argued in Educational Computing: "Into the Unknown is a new and exciting computer assisted learning package for the nine to 13 age range… In the role of a 15 th century sea captain, the children embark upon a voyage to seek new lands and wealth… All the experiences of Into the Unknown are based on the historical reality of the Portuguese voyages of exploration in the 15 th century. The writers are to be congratulated for their attention to historical authenticity which brings the children as close as possible to the actual experiences of the European explorers. The supplementary material in the package is amongst some of the most outstanding I have come across. It will make a really excellent resource bank of material to help children to use the program successfully and to extend their knowledge of the topic. This is a truly outstanding package… It could be one of the most exciting releases of 1984." (5)

The sales for Into the Unknown were extremely good and this encouraged Tressell to produce other computer packages such as Attack on the Somme (student plays the role of Sir Douglas Haig in the summer of 1916 developing a strategy to break through German lines at the Somme) and Wagons West (students play the role of pioneers travelling from Independence, Missouri to California in 1844). When I left Tressell to form Spartacus Educational I produced computer programs such as the Russian Revolution (students play the role of revolutionaries in Russia having to decide the right time to try and overthrow the Russian government) and Wall Street (students buy stocks and shares between 1925 and 1929). (6)

One of the reasons the materials sold in large numbers was the government's Microcomputer in Schools Scheme. Margaret Thatcher launched the initiative in a speech where she argued: "Our future prosperity depends in large part on the quality of education today. That quality requires not only that children should learn the familiar basic subjects but that they should also be able to understand computers and how they can be used and applied. We must remember that today's school children will still be working in the year 2030. The things we can buy and how they are produced will have changed and changed again in that period. Those now at school will need to adapt to each new technological advance if we are to remain an industrial power and to create new products and jobs in the service-based industries. (7)

The government realised that they would also need to provide money to buy educational software to run on the computers. The Support for Educational Software scheme gave £3.5 to schools over a three period. £15.1 million was spent on providing 6,514 secondary schools and 27,407 primary schools with a half-price micro system plus monitor, between June 1981 and December 1984. (8)

My involvement in the design of the computer packages published by Tressell Publications and Spartacus Educational encouraged LEAs history advisers to recruit me to run INSET sessions for heads of department, on using computers in the classroom. Some of these courses lasted three days and on completion, teachers were given a computer and some history software packages to use in the classroom.

A large percentage of the teachers who went on these courses were fairly hostile to the idea of using computers in the classroom. This was not surprising because most of the teachers on these courses did not own a computer. They feared that the students would know far more about computers than they did.

Leslie Smith wrote an article in 1984 about the problems caused by the introduction of computers into schools. "The prospect of sitting at a microcomputer keying-in a series of commands seems to arouse a number of complex emotions among some teachers, and there is ample evidence to suggest that some people not only lack confidence when confronted by a microcomputer but react in an anxious manner sometimes to the point where they ‘turn-off'… Take the case of the one-off gift of a microcomputer by the government to each school. There sits the equipment. It presents a challenge or poses a threat depending on the teacher's point of view." (9)

There was another important problem about the introduction of computers into the classroom. Teaching is a very stressful profession and teachers in the classroom must develop strategies to control the situation. The use of a computer in the classroom carries the risk that will undermine these strategies and might well result in damaging their confidence. It was therefore not surprising that an investigation into the impact of governmental ICT initiatives reported that it was only a small minority of schools is there regular coherent use of ICT to support learning in history. (10)

The truth of the matter is that the early introduction of computers into secondary school history teaching was not a long-term success. Research carried out in the late 1980s suggested that BBC computers rarely left the storeroom. In only a small minority of schools was there regular coherent use of ICT to support learning in history. (11)

It was reported in 1989 that only 11% of history staff in secondary school departments made regular use of ICT. This was the lowest of all school departments: IT/Computer Studies (84%), Design & Technology (38%), Music (34%), Maths (24%), Science (23%), English (19%), Physical Education (18%), Religious Education (17%), Modern Languages (17%) and Geography (15%). (12)

Spartacus Educational

It was not until the emergence of the internet that history teachers began to embrace computers in large numbers. When I first saw the internet, I immediately realised how this could be used by history teachers. I established the Spartacus Educational website in September 1997. At that time there were very few websites that provided educational materials. The BBC website did not appear until December 1997 and Wikipedia in January 2001.

The only newspaper with a website at that time was The Daily Telegraph and its online editor Derek Bishon, employed me to review educational websites. The educational publishing industry was not interested in the internet at this time because they could not see how you made money from the venture. All the early UK history websites were produced by classroom teachers. This included School History, Active History, History Learning and John D. Clare.

In 1998 I established the Association of Teacher Websites (ATW). Over 80 teachers became members, and we agreed that we would provide free teaching materials. Not many of these websites still exist and those who do often charge for their materials.

I was teaching at Sackville School in East Grinstead at the time. Soon after I joined, I managed to persuade the head to fund a computer room for the Humanities Department. Teaching history in that environment was very different from one computer in the corner of the room. It opens the possibility of students preparing teaching materials for other schools to use. "A student in a traditional teaching environment can be very passive or docile but when he or she has to take on the role of teacher and instructor, the student is empowered. The ‘student as teacher' can prove to be an extremely positive and liberating experience for both the student/teacher and the class that makes up the audience." (13)

Year 9 students were asked to select a topic that they were interested on the First World War. The topic had to be agreed with the teacher before the student researched and wrote about the subject. The most surprising request was one made by a refugee from Iran. He asked me if he could write an account of Iran's involvement in the First World War. Together we discovered that Iran (Persia) was an important arena of intense prewar competition between British, Russian and German agents. The outbreak of the war helped German efforts to supplant Anglo-Russian influence. By the end of the war the British faced opposition to its power and the South Persia Rifles were expelled in 1918 but the following year Britain secured supervision of Persia's oil supplies. The completed work of the students was uploaded onto the Sackville School website. The student's father was still living in Iran and was able to access his son's work on the First World War on the internet. I will never forget the look of pride of the boy's face when he told me about the email praising his work he had received from his father.

I was asked by local authority history advisers to provide INSET on using the internet in the classroom. I noticed a major difference from those I did in the 1980s. None of the teachers were frightened to use computers. Many of them had used those early history programs that I had been involved with when they were children in the classroom.

The major problem for teachers in the late 1990s was access to computer rooms in their own schools. At that time the main use of the internet by teachers was to obtain information for their own teaching. Especially the collection of primary sources from websites that could be used in the classroom.

At this time the UK was seen to be at the forefront of education on the internet. I was approached by the Swedish government to become involved in their European Virtual School project. The plan was to provide free educational materials for teachers in Europe. In this position I was able to recruit several teachers to join the project. The Swedes managed to persuade other European countries to contribute including Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Austria. Unfortunately, the UK refused to join until Charles Clarke became Secretary of State for Education. Government support for the European Virtual School was short lived as in 2006, the Social Democratic Party, lost power and the new conservative coalition brought an end to the project. (14)

The use of computers in the classroom had increased because of the introduction of the internet into schools. However, history still lagged behind other departments. It was reported that in 2001 an estimated 42% of history staff in secondary school departments made regular use of ICT. This was one of the lowest of all school departments: IT/Computer Studies (99%), Design & Technology (81%), Science (67%), Maths (60%), English (56%), Geography (56%), Music (43%), Modern Languages (43%), Religious Education (27%) and Physical Education (9%), Religious Education (27%). (15)

Artificial Intelligence and the History Classroom

Today the main issue facing teachers is the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Teachers rightly fear that AI poses a threat. Will AI mean less teachers being employed? Will it result in teachers being less qualified as it is the computer who is doing the teaching?

In the span of my 50-year career teaching history in the classroom and online, the quest for more effective teaching and learning methods has always been at the centre of my ambitions. I believe AI provides a tremendous opportunity to dramatically improve the quality of education in our schools. However, for this to happen teachers need to play the dominant role in the way it is introduced and developed. These AI programs need to be produced by experienced teachers and funded by the state. This material will then be used by all schools and in the long term they will not need to spend as much money on books and software.

There are several different types of AI programs that could help to improve the classroom experience. Some of these things are already happening using the latest technology but AI will enable them to develop more detailed and sophisticated learning activities.

(1) AI-powered virtual tour guides

Historical tours have long been a mainstay of teaching the subject. As Eleanor Janega has pointed out: "With the expansion of a technologically literate general population, and a proliferation of smart tech, a new opportunity has arisen for those interested in historical tourism – virtual tours. Virtual tours have a number of advantages for audiences. Their physical presence in an area isn't required, and in some cases their attendance at a particular time is not either. They need only access an app, or a group chat, and they are able to learn about a particular place while having a look at it digitally… Virtual tours also have some distinct advantages for those interested in giving tours. Historians who are enthusiastic to share their knowledge with others can do so without the inconveniences of blocking thoroughfares and holding umbrellas." (16)

AI allows you to visit places that it would be very difficult for teachers to arrange. For example, you can take a virtual tour of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. Hosted on Google Arts & Culture, it allows visitors to explore nine interactive galleries at the Museum. The experience offers a chronological narrative of the Holocaust through encounters with historical artifacts and photographs. Visitors will also see one of the Museum's conservation labs, allowing them to examine how staff preserve and present Holocaust history. A lesson plan is available where students examine how the Museum uses artifacts and photographs from its collections to present the history of the Holocaust and memorialize its victims - including artifacts and photographs that illustrate important aspects of Holocaust history such as Torah scrolls rescued during Kristallnacht, a train car, prisoner barracks from Auschwitz, and a gas chamber model. Students also tour the Museum's architecture and discuss what makes the Museum a living memorial. (17) (2)

AI-powered virtual tour guides allow students to explore historical sites as they were in the distant past. For example, Flyover Zone, an educational technology company, has employed digital archaeologist Bernard Frischer, and the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University to created Rome Reborn, a fantastic view of ancient Rome and its famed monuments, including the Colosseum, Pantheon, Baths of Caracalla, and the Roman Forum, as they may have appeared in A.D. 320. (18) History in 3D is another very exciting project being developed by Danila Loginov and his team in Serbia. They have started with Ancient Rome but are working on several projects of 3D history reconstruction. (19)

(2) Historical Simulations

Teachers have been using historical simulations in the classroom for many years. In their book Simulation in the Classroom (1972), John Taylor and Rex Walford argued that an educational simulation has three main components: (i) Students take roles which are representative of the real world and involve them making decisions in response to their assessment of the situation that they have been placed in. (ii) Students experience simulated consequences which relate to their decisions and their general performance in the simulation. (iii) Students monitor the results of their actions and are encouraged to reflect upon the relationship between their own decisions and the resulting consequences of their actions. (20)

Benjamin Breen, historian of science and medicine at the University of Santa Cruz, has been experimenting with using large language models like ChatGPT in history teaching. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. In April 2023 Breen tried out an assignment in which students of his medieval history class simulated a day in the life as characters during the height of the Bubonic Plague epidemic in 1348, living in one of three places: Damascus, Paris, or Pistoia, an Italian city-state. (21)

Patrick Hickey, a member of the History Teachers Association of Ireland, is a recent convert to the new technology available to a teacher: "AI has undeniably transformed the way I approach teaching. Its capabilities have allowed me to design lessons that were once beyond imagination. AI-enabled platforms have made it possible to "conjure up" figures from the past, offering students the unique opportunity to engage in simulated interviews with a diverse range of historical characters. This innovative approach has not only captivated students' interests but also deepened their understanding of historical contexts and narratives. For instance, my students have had the chance to ask a Celtic druid about ancient rituals and beliefs, providing insights into the spiritual and cultural dimensions of Celtic society. They've questioned a mediaeval knight about the realities of feudal life and warfare, shedding light on the complexities of mediaeval social hierarchies and military strategies. An interaction with an Allied soldier on the eve of D-Day has brought to life the tension, fear, and bravery of those moments, offering a personal perspective on the events of World War II. These encounters bring history alive in a manner that textbooks simply cannot match." (22)

(3) Intelligent Tutoring Systems

AI-powered tutoring systems, also known as intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), use artificial intelligence to provide personalized learning experiences for students. The goals of ITS research are twofold: first, to offer advanced personalized guidance that surpasses traditional computer-aided instruction and rivals the effectiveness of human tutors; and second, to advance our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in teaching and learning. These systems can offer guidance, feedback, and explanations tailored to each student's needs. For example, an AI tool could analyse a student's learning style and suggest resources that match their preferences, such as visual aids for visual learners or interactive timelines for hands-on learners and therefore creating a one-on-one educational experience. (23)

(4) Natural Language Processing and Automated Writing Feedback

AI tools can help enhance students' historical writing skills by providing grammar, style, and content feedback. Automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems such as Grammarly and Pigai assist learners and educators in the writing process by providing corrective feedback on student writing. These systems, and older tools such as spelling and grammar checkers, rely on natural language processing to identify errors and infelicities in writing and suggest improvements. However, with the recent unleashing of highly sophisticated generative pretrained transformer (GPT) large language models (LLMs), such as GPT-4 by OpenAI and PaLM 2 by Google, AWE we are entering a new era. (24)

(5) Automated Grading and Assessment

AI can streamline the grading process for history teachers by automating the assessment of multiple-choice quizzes or objective tests. According to Sara Ali, "OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology plays a crucial role in automated feedback systems for eLearning. With OCR integrated into automated feedback systems, instructors no longer have to manually input grades or comments on each student's work. Instead, the system automatically recognizes and extracts relevant information. such as answers to questions or essays. It then compares these responses against predefined criteria to generate personalized feedback. This integration significantly improves grading efficiency by reducing the time spent on administrative tasks. Instructors can focus more on providing valuable insights and guidance to students rather than getting caught up in repetitive data entry." (25)

Marking history essays is notoriously subjective, and Ben Walsh believes AI could significantly reduce this inconsistency. He is particularly excited about Olex.AI's potential to free up teacher time: "The most exciting part about Olex is how it could save teachers time without detriment to the quality of marking". Teachers would still be able to dip into the AI-generated feedback, allowing them to refine assessment over time, and potentially engage in professional development. This isn't just about making the process faster, Ben Walsh believes AI could also provide a more consistent baseline for marking, especially when it comes to subjective assessments that require higher-order thinking. This kind of feedback would allow students to understand not only what they got wrong, but how they can improve their analytical and interpretive skills. (26)

I want to finish by looking how AI programs might be used by classroom teachers in the future. At first teachers will need to consider the layout of the classroom. For AI to be used effectively it will need a combination of personalised computer learning and small and whole class discussion. Maybe we should consider the idea of students when on the computer wearing headsets that block outside sounds and disturbances. However, it is important to be able to easily move into a situation where students can exchange ideas.

Here is an example of how you can use AI to teach a history course on "Women's struggle to achieve equal rights." I would start with a short documentary on Mary Wollstonecraft and her book Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). This would focus on her argument that women are not naturally inferior to men but appear to be only because they lack education and therefore both men and women should be treated as equals.

After the documentary was finished the students would be encouraged to devise questions they would like to ask Mary Wollstonecraft. If they found this difficult, they could select from a list of questions provided by the computer program. These questions would then be answered on the screen by an actress playing Wollstonecraft.

The screen could then show actors playing the ro le of King George III, William Pitt, Edmund , Burkewho disagreed with Wollstonecraft on this issue. Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Maria Edgeworth could provide examples of women who disapproved of her views.

Students could then be asked to write a couple of sentences about the quote from Mary Wollstonecraft: "Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience."

The students could be then given the subject: "Boys and girls should have equal educational opportunities" AI would randomly give the student a character from this period who had very different ideas on the subject. Every student would be given a different character. AI would help them write a speech this character would have made in 1792. The class would then join up together to discuss the statement: "Boys and girls should have equal educational opportunities"

We then move onto the first half of the 19 th century. A documentary could be shown on the early life of Caroline Sheridan who at the age of 16 married George Norton, the son of Lord Grantley, in 1824. An actress playing Caroline Norton could read extracts from her book, English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century (1854) where she explains the problems she encountered in her marriage.

The students then play on a computer simulation where they play the role of Caroline Norton from 1830 to her death in 1877. Students are given a range of options open to Norton in her struggle with her husband and the legal system of the time. In this way they will experience the frustrations and achievements (1839 Custody of Children Act and the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act) of Caroline Norton.

AI would then help them write a speech on what women should do to reform the legal system to give equality to women. The class then gets together to discuss the suggestions that have been made. This will probably include the idea of forming organizations that can put pressure on the government to make the necessary reforms.

These same methods could be used to look at the activities of the National Union of Suffrage Societies, Women's Social and Political Union, The Women's Freedom League, National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship. The students could then look at the reasons why women are still disadvantaged in society.