It is unhelpful for students to have illusions

With the development of digital resources
there is a wealth of interesting and stimulating
content for students and there are good reasons
why students can become engaged and enthused
by their History study BUT for all this,
and the enjoyment that rich resources provide,
there is a truth that can not be escaped.
This truth is mentioned in our unit
student e-guides and copied here:

The good news and the bad news
1. The bad news. A base body information from your self-created
notes - see Study guide. Sorry, there is no escaping this, it is something
you have to do for yourself. Reading Tutor-prescribed pages for each stage
of this unit study, passing the words through your mind and assessing what you read
and selecting what you need to record and making a record (your notes)
in a structured form that is easy to review and work on (and learn)
has always been one key foundation of historical work.

2. … and it gets worse! However well you undertake the reading and noting,
the most tedious part of History study, if you then file the work until
the final assessment you lessen the benefit of your efforts because
you do not process or work on the hard-won information. To cruise to the top grades
you need to set a little time aside, yes it is only a little, after you have harvested
the reading for each assignment, to ‘work on’ the information, to pass it through your mind.
This is step two and it is readily overlooked - see Study guide.

3. But now comes the good news. Step two does not take nearly as long as step one,
it does not take long at all and you can make it fun. In addition, you can exchange ideas
and debate judgements with your fellow students and it will lead the way to
a huge jump in the standard of your historical work.

For more comment in a wider context click on
Opportunities and challenges in the average school/college