I believe one of the greatest challenges that we face as history educators is to contend with the promise and the illusion of ease that the digital world often offers. The skills involved in historical thinking are not easy to master, they require, practice, persistence, patience, and the ability to be comfortable with not having clear and cut answers.

Digital tools provide greater and more convenient access to sources and they can help students read and understand materials more efficiently. However, they do not necessarily reduce the amount of time and effort that students need to practice important skills such as close reading and writing. 

The challenge, thus, becomes how to introduce the use of digital tools while still encouraging patience, attention to detail, and persistence? In this regard, the introduction of digital tools can be seen as a blessing in disguise in that it also forces us, as educators to be very deliberate about our goals when adopting a particular tool. The greater clarity we have about what is that we want our students to learn, the easier it will be to communicate those expectations to them. Moreover, the tool should serve as a “drill” that is, it should allow them to focus their attention on particular skills in a way that feels efficient and engaging. It should enable students to realize that they are active participants in their own learning. In this regard digital tools can be very helpful since they emphasize interactivity, active participation and, hopefully, productive and intelligent repetition, which may be the hardest sale. But given the right tools we may be able to help students cultivate more patience and persistence and realize that, though difficult, historical thinking is worth the time and effort.