History Teaching in the Times of Digital Technology

Abstract

The contemporary school ethos is marked by an incursion of technological forces. In India, school systems have begun accepting internet technology and gadgets as enabling tools for learning. The technology-driven climate is dramatically transforming the methods of learning history. The adoption of digital technology in Indian school system has become an entry point for ideologically driven content in the history classrooms. This article presents an auto-ethnographic account of teaching history in an Indian school that has adopted the use of internet technology in classroom teaching and other routine activities. The experiences have been categorised as four episodes, each discussing a dimension of a particular school routine which was altered due to the incursion of an audio–video pedagogical culture. It argues that digital technology in education has impeding effects on the students’ ability to think historically and calls for teachers to not succumb to its epistemological onslaught.