While many young Vietnamese find the subject boring at school, they have been using sites like Facebook to learn history on their own.

 Timeline feature makes important moments and people accessible

History teachers have always faced a difficult task in this country, with a large amount of receiving low scores during university entrance exams. Both education professionals and parents have been struggling to find a solution.

Recently, however, a Facebook page called "A brief History of Vietnam" has become something of a fad among students. The page is more or less a chronology of key events in the history of Vietnam since the 19th century. Users are allowed to post comments and view pictures from the various time periods.

Historical figures such as Ly Thai To and Tran Quang Khai are fleshed out in detail on their respective pages, along with commentary from historians.

The page has only collected information from credible resources, and has plans to co-operate with University of Social Sciences and Humanities' Faculty of History in order to give a broader perspective.

The integration of history and social networking has proved quite successful, with the page receiving more than 5,000 likes within the first two days

Huynh Dung, a fan of the page, said, "They really did a great job of covering the basic facts of Vietnamese history while making it accessible to everyone. It is a goldmine of knowledge."

Another user commented, "The idea is really amazing, and has rekindled my interest in the history of my country. I honestly hope that tools like this will keep my passion for history alive in the future."

The particular interest of young people in videos, quotes and historical anecdotes has been drawing the attention, not only of the administrators of the online group, but also of educators, who might consider such methods as a new models for teaching in the future.

Historical timelines presented in modern fashion

New approach to teaching history