For my ancient history class, we do not have the relevant textbooks at my campus. It is possible to find a suitable textbook at other campuses, but they are often missing or borrowed. There are very few books on ancient history available in the TAFE library,but they are often on a very specific subject, the tomb of Tutankhamun for example, and do not match the current NSW syllabus. This situation would imply the view that the on-line world can offer sufficient resources to high school students. To what extent is this true?  

The objectives of the HSC Ancient History course in Australia asks students to: 

• “develop the application of knowledge, skills, understanding, values and attitudes in the fields of study they choose” 
• “ to analyse different interpretations and representations of the ancient world in forms such as literature, film and museum displays” 
• “to engage with a range of sources.”  

So to start with, it is reasonable to assume that an ancient history course would need to have books that reflect the demands of the course which at the moment covers the study of ancient historical sites across the world, Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Fall of the Roman Republic with a focus on the life and contribution of Julius Caesar and The New Kingdom of Egypt, the 18th and 19th Dynasties.  

This is further complicated by the students needing to have a developed and clear idea of the historical concepts: sources, evidence, continuity and change, cause and effect, significance, perspectives, empathy and contestability to the point where they can apply these creatively to exam questions (School Curriculum and Standards Authority, 2015).  Additionally, trying to uncover all sources related to “ancient” cultures on the Internet will prove to be, at best, annoying and, at worst, frustrating. The terms used are inconsistent not only across the Internet and the World Wide Web but also among various institutions, professionals, and cataloging systems (Eckhart, 2002). 

Oddone (2016) emphasizes the continued relevance and significance of school libraries despite the prevalence of online resources like Google. Girard et al. (2020) found that secondary history teachers in the US determined the historical content’s historical significance is their main consideration while choosing which subjects to include in their curriculum, but without resources beyond the online, it is difficult to imagine a teacher having this kind of freedom. This is because of the nature of online material in relation to academic study. While it has been seen that students can be more motivate through the self-directed study mode of online research, their work suffered from the contrast between the lack of organisation and editing (Ng & Gunstone, 2002) and their belief that online material is accurate, and that the internet contains ‘all the information on a given subject’ or conversely sometimes coming to the conclusion that ‘the internet does not have information on that particular topic’ when their search skills were ineffective. Ng and Gunstone (2002) conclude that teachers were indispensable to student learning success in this context. Online academic research has also additionally neccessitated me to provide additional lessons on historical inquiry, effective search terms, how to use Google Scholar and advanced search, how to use journal articles and navigate log in options and paywalls.  

I am currently looking for alternatives for printed textbooks, such as e-textbooks and various access to more in-depth online resources.  

Girard, B. J., Harris, L. M., Mayger, L. K., Kessner, T., & Reid, S. F. (2020). “There’s no way we can teach all of this”: Factors that influence secondary history teachers’ content choices. Theory and Research in Social Education, 49(2), 227–261. https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2020.1855280 

Ng, W., & Gunstone, R. (2002). Students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the world wide web as a research and teaching tool in science learning. Research in Science Education, 32(4), 489–510. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1022429900836 

NSW Education Standards Authority. (2017). NSW Syllabus for the Australian curriculum Ancient History Stage 6 Syllabus. https://syllabus.nesa.nsw.edu.au/assets/ancient_history/ancient-history-stage-6-syllabus-2017.pdf 

Oddone, K. (2016). The importance of school libraries in the Google age. SCIS Connections, (98). Retrieved from https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-98/the-importance-of-school-libraries-in-the-google-age 

School Curriculum and Standards Authority. (2015). Humanities and Social Sciences: Key Concepts. Government of Western Australia. Retrieved March 12, 2024, from https://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/34884/HASS-P-10-Key-concepts-exemplification.PDF