Using VEs to enhance chronological understanding of history in middle school children.

Studies with computer-experienced children in the UK and less experienced in Ukraine explored the potential for VEs in teaching historical chronology to middle-school children aged 10–12 years old. Active fly-through VEs had been previously used successfully with primary school children aged 8–9 years old (given specific training with the environment) when they were subsequently tested for their ability to order events chronologically. All VEs in the present studies included a training element and active challenge, both found previously to enhance learning in other age groups. Ukraine children were trained and tested. UK children here were trained and tested, then retrained and retested to examine savings. Unlike other age groups, no significant benefit was seen for VE training compared with PowerPoint and Text conditions in either study. Possible explanations for the ineffectiveness of VE training for children of middle school age will be discussed. Keywords: timeline, chronographics

‘To see at one glance all the centuries that have passed’ - early visualisations of historical time

This chapter focuses on the visualisation of historical time, illustrated by key examples from the eighteenth century when the modern timeline was invented. We are fortunate in having not only surviving examples of printed timelines from the period but also explanations written by their makers, revealing the ambitions they had for visualisation. An important divergence is evident, between those who want to use rhetorical visual metaphors to tell a graphical story, and those who prefer to let the data ‘speak for itself’, allowing patterns to emerge from the distribution of data points across a surface. Keywords: timeline, chronographics