Keep hearing about Historiana but not sure where to begin? As we move towards the start of a new school year, the Historiana team wants to provide new users with a very quick tour of some of the key features on the site. 

While you can explore and use Historiana without creating an account, registering for MyHistoriana is free and takes less than a minute. This will give you access to many handy extra features as you will see below.

There are three main sections on the Historiana site that can provide you with different resources and functionalities. 

Historical Content

This section of Historiana functions a little like an online textbook, but with many more possibilities. The Historical Content section is especially useful for teachers looking to add greater multiperspectivity and a wider diversity of sources into their teaching and learning programs. You can use the search bar to look up keywords relevant to your teaching topics to help you locate the most useful materials for your context. 

The resources available in this part of Historiana vary in their depth and detail. Here is a brief description of the different types of resources available:

• Key Moments & Units are the most comprehensive resources. They provide historical context and explanation, a range of contextualised sources (in downloadable PowerPoint format), and links to associated learning activities. They are divided into sub-sections to break the large topics into more focused aspects. 

The Key Moments currently available are: World War I, World War II and the Cold War. The Units currently available are: Internment without a trial, Changing Europe, and Silencing Citizens through Censorship.

• Narratives are a new feature on Historiana and provide student-friendly texts on a range of historical topics written by our team of experts. Each narrative is divided into chapters and also includes relevant sources and discussion questions to focus student learning. Currently, most narratives relate to the “European Experience” but we are continuing to add other topics.
• Source Collections are smaller, more flexible and digestible resources. They provide a coherent set of curated visual sources on more than 80 different topics. These collections can be used in their entirety or by selecting just a few relevant sources depending on your needs. You can easily save your favourite sources to your MyHistoriana account to refer back to later by clicking the “+” button at the bottom of the source. Sources can also be added to eLearning Activities (see below).
• Viewpoints are a treasure trove for teachers seeking to include greater multiperspectivity in their lessons. You will find a brief introduction and a range of short text-based sources providing different viewpoints on each of the 15 topics currently available. 

Teaching and Learning

In this section you have a variety of prepared learning activities that you can adapt and use with your students. As with the historical content, you can use the search bar to type in keywords to find activities related to the topics you teach. There are two categories of activity in this section:

• Learning Activities are activities you can use offline. They usually contain printable worksheets and/or PowerPoint presentations. In most cases, we have provided materials in Word and PowerPoint formats so that you are able to edit the files according to your context and your students’ needs. It is always best to make sure you read through the teacher material carefully first to make sense of the lesson resources and students worksheets.
• eLearning Activities are activities that students complete online. They are designed by our team using the eActivity Builder and promote historical thinking in an online environment. You can add any eLearning Activity to your MyHistoriana account. In MyHistoriana you can edit the activity if you wish and share it by providing your students with a link. From MyHistoriana you are then able to review student responses.

E-Activity Builder

This tool allows you to create eLearning Activities all of your own. Using the building blocks, you can construct learning activities that suit your specific class needs. 

Before creating an activity, you will need to add the sources you wish to use to your MyHistoriana account either from the Historiana Source Collections or by uploading files with your own sources. Then you are ready to create an activity! Once you have finished your activity, you can share it with your students. You can also share eLearning Activities with your colleagues who can save it and edit it further using their own MyHistoriana accounts.

Our best advice is to take some time to explore and experiment with all the possibilities Historiana provides. We have tried to make the site as intuitive as possible but we are also always here to help so don’t hesitate to reach out to the EuroClio team if you would like support in making the most of Historiana or to request a training workshop for your association.