Houses of History

Cimex builds an extensive educational resource for Parliament that guides users through one thousand years of history.

The story of Parliament is a tale filled with intrigue and major social change. From its humble beginnings as a monastery on Thorney Island, the Palace of Westminster has evolved through fire, war and political upheaval.

To bring this story to life for school pupils aged seven and above, Cimex were asked by Parliament’s Education Service (PES) to develop a new creative concept that explores the key events in the development of the Houses of Parliament alongside the story of democracy in the UK in a visually stimulating way.

The timeline

The scrollable timeline at the foot of the resource charts Parliament’s history by highlighting important dates in its development. Each one is accompanied by a brief summary of the event. Users can access a longer explanation by clicking on the timeline cell itself.

For key dates, such as the Gunpowder Plot and the execution of Charles I, a 500 word article is available that is accompanied by quotations and images. These assets can be collected by the user to complete an in-built educational task.

Information, article content and images are pulled in using XML, which allows PES to make additions and changes to the timeline without the need for further technical integration work.

Cimex content specialists worked with Parliament’s historical archivists to research and create this written material, delivering more than 20,000 words that are used across the site, as well as sourcing quotations and relevant external links that provide users with further information.

An animated history

To increase the level of engagement with younger users, the timeline is accompanied by a series of animations to explain certain stages in Parliament’s development. Each sequence uses historical images from the parliamentary archives in an almost ‘Monty Python’-esque style to bring the most important stages of Westminster’s history to life.

The newspaper task

Houses of History is not just an e-learning resource that can be browsed at a user’s leisure. Teachers can task pupils to create their own newspaper article, based around a particular event or learning theme.

Using the quotations and images that they have collected, users can add them to a pre-designed newspaper template. They can personalise this by adding their own headlines and captions, and by writing their own article using what they have learned from exploring the timeline.

The e-learning team at Cimex created a set of teacher’s notes for the resource, which include a number of sample exercises that can be used in a classroom alongside the timeline. These scenarios are grouped across a number of themes that are mapped to the Citizenship and History curriculum.

Result

Houses of History is a serious educational resource with a sense of fun. It allows users to take an online self-guided tour across one thousand years of history.

It can be used as a teaching resource, or as a stand alone research tool to be explored informally.

Published: 04 Jun 2010

Tags: Design & enhancement, E learning, Seo sem & content