Teaching history in the 21st century : Thomas Ketchell at TEDx Liege

Thomas Ketchell, 25 years old, shares his experience tobring a new way of teaking history through technology in schools around the world. He details his successful experiment using twitter, when while living in Beijing, he experienced the dreadful quality of the air on a daily basis. Wanting to alert people back home what it was like to breathe in this dirty air, he decided with his colleague Steven Chiu -- to re-enact on social media the 1952 Great Smog of London. The success of this re-enactment led to worldwide coverage, which encouraged both Steven and Thomas to co-found Hstry, which relives historical events through a first-person perspective to bring history to life. Hstry is now providing interactive storylines of historical events for both elementary and secondary schools across the globe in line with their vision to become the leading digital learning platform for history.

I've been blown away by all these talks

about rebirth and renaissance today.

I believe

humanity works on a cycle of rebirths

and we are at the crossroads of a new one.

Our lives are becoming
more and more digitized.

And in time, education will follow.

As a history major,
I struggled to find a job.

I actually ended up working
in the environmental industry

in Kenya, in East Africa,

working on renewable energy projects

with a focus on biogas
in rural communities.

This then led me to Beijing, China

and the scene you can see behind me,

another beautiful sunny afternoon

in the Chinese capital.

I was tired of breathing in

this dirty, polluted, smoggy air.

And I kept alerting my friends

and family back home

of what it was like to live through this.

But they didn't really believe me.

So I decided to look back on history.

So armed with my history diploma,

what events stood out for me?

The London Great Smog, in 1952.

12 000 people lost their lives in 5 days.

12 000 people.

This is the worst man-made
air pollution disaster ever.

And yet, hardly anybody knew about it.

So what I decided to do,

was to create a fictional character,

someone who woke up in 1952,

had a smartphone and began tweeting.

And he tweeted as if he was
really living the event in real time.

But this was over 60 years ago.

I used the hashtag "#GreatSmog"

and I spoke in a language
which kids were familiar with

and they could understand.

We got picked up by media organisations,

we got picked up by environmentalists

and everyone started following this feed,

re-living this historical event.

It was the true impact of the Great Smog,

people didn't actually know
what was going on at the time.

It's only when the hospitals
started filling up,

people were dying of
heart attacks in the streets,

people were dying in
their homes while they slept.

And yet, they didn't quite realize
how many people were dying.

It's only when the morgues
were actually full

that they realized the true
impact of the Great Smog.

So I created 422 tweets
in the space of 5 days

and I reached millions
of people on Twitter.

So you are probably thinking,

"what's the point? Why did I do this?
What's the interest?"

Well, I did it because history
is still stuck in the dark ages.

History teaching

and it's outdated context,
outdated delivery,

kids are simply bored of it.

If you want a kid to hate
their iPad, put a textbook on it.

It's the same with history.

We can't just live with static figures

and dates and numbers.

Kids aren't interested in that anymore.

We need history to be brought to life,

we need the teachers to actually use

the power of technology and tell stories.

This is what I strive to do everyday
as a technology entrepreneur.

Innovation though, is difficult.

What we really need is to push
for schools to have a new vision

and a new way to be open
and pushing for collaboration.

Here are a few examples
of innovators in the space

who use technology and mix it with history

to bring a story to life.

One of the teachers I spoke to
a couple of months ago, Corina,

she works at the Steve Jobs schools

- yes, they do exist,
in Almere in the Netherlands -

and she told me just that,

she said what she liked about using
history and technology in the classroom

is that it brought the content to life

and engaged to students.

It made her kids curious,

it lighted that spark of
curiosity inside them,

which got them to go explore more

and find out more about
that historical event.

And that's exactly... and she's right!

Every teacher that I liked
and remembered from history

told me a powerful story.

When now teachers have technology

to actually make this happen,

it's very easy.

The second example I want
to show you is Minecraft.

So for those of you that
don't know Minecraft,

it's a virtual 3D sandbox game

where users can create these
amazing worlds from scratch.

Now Minecraft is great because it pushes
for collaboration, for digital citizenships

and by that I mean

sort of Internet ethics
and also privacy issues.

And it allows for people to really
chat on there and discuss events.

What was so great about this Minecraft

was that it was a student that created it

for his Latin class.

So the student, before Minecraft,

did not feel engaged with the content,

he was having problems studying.

So he created
this Roman bath house himself.

And from there,
he actually learnt Latin

and started giving tours
to other users in Latin.

I mean, how engaging is that

and how inspiring is that?

There's so much creativity there.

My third example is a teacher

that I look up to and that I admire,

Enrique Legaspi.

He's a social studies teacher in the U.S.

And what he does is

he actively uses Twitter
within the classroom setting.

He uses the tool to get students

to collaborate on the net,
to discuss events,

and uses one event, one hashtag.

And he's actually found

that students are a lot more engaged

with the study of history.

What he's also noticed

is that the shy ones
actually speak up now.

So every student in his class has a role

and feels part of the classroom.

Enrique is one of many
of the teachers out there

currently doing this in the space.

And this is what I want to do

as an education technology entrepreneur,

is bring these stories to life,

bring history alive and make it active,

make it enjoyable
and fun for the students,

get them involved.

Unfortunately, it is
a difficult space to be in.

And really,
with the power of the Internet,

millions and millions of people
are getting access to the web.

And we can allow for this collaboration

between students from different classrooms

but also different countries.

One example is,

one which may be close to
a lot of people in the room today,

is the independence of Congo.

Why can't we have students collaborating
about this historic event together,

on one platform, discussing, collaborating.

What was it like for a student

to grow up during Congo

when it was colonized by Belgians;

what it was like for a Belgian student

to grow up in Belgium

and discuss Belgium's colonization.

Why can't we have these students

from different countries,
from different continents

discussing and collaborating together?

To do this though,

we all need boldness,
imagination and creativity.

Unfortunately, our schools
do not allow for this currently,

so we need a new vision for schools

to push this through.

Our students are
very smartphone-orientated.

They need 21st century skills now.

These 21st century skills

revolve around cognitive skills,
innovation and recognition.

And really, to do this
we need to allow students

to really have access to technology.

And schools need to change
the way they are being taught

when it comes to liberal arts.

No longer are we in an era

where someone like
Henry Ford wanted workers

who were obedient, who listened

and who didn't question.

Today someone like
Larry Page wants people

to answer questions that
haven't been solved yet,

and he wants creators.

But more importantly,
he wants innovators.

And that's really what we need to push for

when it comes to history.

"Social media is bad,

we shouldn't use it in the classroom."

I am tired and I'm really fed up

of hearing that argument

from top level educators.

Let's actually let

the students use these tools.

Let them get engaged with history.

It's actually, you get them to use tools

that are actually in need for the future.

They don't need a textbook anymore.

They can google something
in 2 seconds

and figure out the answer.

Sir Ken Robinson once said:

"Nobody has any idea

of what's going to happen in the future

but everybody has
an interest in education."

And I think he's right.

Those words ring true,

especially for the future
of the liberal arts

and in particular history.

A child is not born

with a notepad and a pen anymore.

He's born with technology
at their fingertips.

So, my very short talk today

is really about dreaming
and going out there,

and going big

and really pushing for this collaboration.

Making history personalised,

getting children involved,

getting them engaged with history.

And that's really what I'm trying
to push forward today.

It's to go out there

and really make a difference.

So the themes of these talks
today has been rebirth.

I think we should have a Renaissance

of the way history is taught in classrooms

across the country and across the globe.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)