ReviewThere are still many of us dinosaurs who remember well the dark ages of teaching (back in the 1970’s!) where a visual aid was coloured chalk on a blackboard, and what few resources that were available took the form of rather ancient tomes, often historical artefacts in their own right. Now we are moving to the other extreme, where information overload is the norm, with the internet able to bring the world, past, present and future into our classrooms. This has led to the need for very careful discrimination. There is a wealth of information available but finding what is suitable for our individual pupils in our classes is quite problematic in itself. At the Primary School level there are many web sites which offer factual and pictorial information of varying quality, but very few encourage or help develop research skills necessary for high school and tertiary education. A notable exception to this rule is Heritage Explorer, part of the English Heritage group. This site should be seen as a portal into our National Heritage rather than a stand alone web site. The designers of this Portal claim that “Heritage Explorer provides classroom ready, curriculum-based activities and thousands of easily searchable images for free. Designed for teachers and learners, this resource is continually being updated by the National Monuments Record, the public archive of English Heritage.” In this reviewer’s opinion, these claims are an understatement of the true value of what is on offer. Whilst lower Key Stage pupils will need assistance navigating around the extensive materials available, year six and high school students will have no problem exploring the site which is extensively and comprehensively signposted with links to many other subject related sites. One very important aspect of this site is the content has in no way been ‘dumbed down’ the images are presented with comprehensive captions, sources are clearly marked, and the links to the National Curriculum are clearly defined. Heritage Explorer is the most comprehensive web portal for the study of English heritage that this reviewer has come across. It houses a veritable wealth of resources with comprehensive links to other web sites and related resources. The site has obviously been very carefully planned to meet the needs of a wide ranging audience and certainly offers a variety of activities which help encourage the development of more in-depth research skills. Although my comments have been restricted to its use at Key Stage 2, teachers at KS1 will find its library of images and data relating to their History PoS very useful, as will Key Stage 3 pupils and teachers. I suggest that all school age pupils will derive enormous benefit from using this site as part of their studies. On the home page of Heritage Explorer there is a link to the teaching activities page which lists Historical topics according to Key stage National Curriculum programme of study. This page leads to suggested teaching plans, learning objectives, activities and resource links. The planning presentation is self-explanatory and very comprehensive. I certainly found it invaluable both in terms of time saved on planning and the wealth of resource materials available at my fingertips. Users of this site, whether teachers or students, are limited only by their own imaginations. I did find it very useful to use the IWB (though a projector would do) to introduce the site to the pupils; additionally the children used the whiteboard to present their findings to the class. I used this web site with my year six pupils who had been tasked with researching the life and work of a famous Victorian of their choice, this project being part of a whole key stage 2 study of the Victorian era. I decided to model the use of the site using the IWB with the whole class, to show them how to use the search engine and more importantly to help develop their still rather embryonic research skills. For this I chose Isambard Kingdom Brunel, my own personal Victorian hero, and looked at the BBC schools site for some basic information. Armed with a few basic details, we entered Brunel’s name into the Heritage Explorer search engine and were immediately presented with dozens of well documented images relating to Brunel and his work. Clicking on the many available links led to yet more information and pictorial evidence. Whilst the children may not have been particularly interested in their teacher’s choice of hero, they were certainly impressed with the way they could access information and how there was a logical progression of ideas eg knowing that Brunel built the GWR was one thing but to be able to explore the bridges, tunnels and stations in great detail by studying the large number of photographs available was something else! The more the children explored the site in search of their Victorian heroes, the more involved and excited they became, with the more able pupils forging ahead with their research whilst the less able working by their sides.
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