Developing chronological understanding through the use of ICT

Introduction: Research into chronological understanding

Chronological understanding is both one of history's most important disciplinary organising concepts (Lee and Shemilt: 2004) required for developing a full understanding of history, and certainly one of the most researched, though often with a broader remit that just historical understanding. It is possible to sympathise with Turner-Bissett (2005) and Lello (1980) when they argued that too much emphasis has been placed on developing and assessing children's chronological understanding. Nevertheless, Stow and Haydn (2000) made a powerful case for the importance of chronology in underpinning ideas of change and historical development, even if they acknowledged that chronology was a necessary but not sufficient element in full historical understanding, an argument supported by Thornton and Vukelich (1988)...