Digital Historical Maps in Classrooms. Challenges in History Education

Abstract

The aim of this work is to reflect on the use of ICTs (information and communication technologies) to develop historical thinking, and specifically the way in which multimedia and internet technologies can provide new resources and broaden teaching possibilities through the use of dynamic historical maps. Maps are cultural tools that reflect and offer particular socio-political and cultural understandings of a territory. In this sense, maps ought to be recognized as primary source texts and used as such in history education classrooms. As primary sources, they can be critically analyzed for both their construction and their interpretation‚ and it is possible to consider that it is necessary to recognize the importance maps have in history classroom to encourage a better understanding among students of historical transformations in spaces and national territories. However, maps included in textbooks typically don’t represent the past territory, but the current one. In a research conducted in Argentina we analyzed how subjects represent the national territory of the past and the changes that took place on it as a result of historical processes. The results show that the majority of students draw the current borders of Argentina as if it was the territory that gained independence in 1816. It is to say that these results show an essentialist representation of the territory since the participants tend to represent the current borders as if they had always existed. We will consider the importance of including the use of digital tools in the classroom for students to see the dynamics of borders with the aim of developing historical thinking.