Thursday, November 5, 2015

Compare & Contrast Ideas: This Day in History

This Day in History app for iPad is an interactive calendar that shows historical events for any selected day, best used on the current day, along with related media such as photos, illustrations, music, and speeches. Some examples are listening to the national anthem of countries on the day of their founding, presidential speeches on the anniversary of their inauguration, and sound clips from famous musicians on their birthdays. Furthermore, background text appears for each event to highlight interesting aspects that students may not be aware of and can discuss in class. Best of all, the app is free!



















This app would be best used to start each day in the classroom as a way to get the students to start thinking critically and discussing various historical topics. They will be able to compare and contrast ideas relating to the information presented and discuss the importance of each fact. The main downside for this app is that the students will need an iPad in order to keep up on a daily basis, though I may be able to show the app from my own computer or iPad on the overhead each day if necessary. Also, because the facts presented are about certain days and not specific topics, the information is often jumbled across different narratives and not necessarily relevant to the class discussion. That being said, this app would still be good to get to the students thinking at the beginning of class.
http://www.mackiev.com/wb_ipad.html
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3 comments:

  1. UnknownNovember 6, 2015 at 10:02 PM

    This app reminds me of these "Brain quest" cards that my teachers in elementary school would quiz us with before each class; while the questions weren't always relevant to the teacher's lesson plan for the day, the facts always got us thinking and and ready to learn. Regardless of whether the app generates facts relevant to what is being taught, there is something about isolated facts (So long as they are remotely interesting!) that causes information to stick with us (Would it be weird to propose a Snapple cap as an example here?). For the reason that I could see myself remembering facts presented through this app, I think the app would be great for teaching kids facts about world history! At no cost, the app is definitely a risk free investment worth trying out!

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    1. Joseph DiGiacomoNovember 7, 2015 at 4:02 PM

      Snapple cap, love it! It would definitely be something that would make the kids look forward to the start of each lesson, assuming the facts are interesting as you said.

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  2. UnknownNovember 8, 2015 at 5:37 PM

    I agree with Chelsea! There is something about random facts that tend to stick with you! As someone who doesn't care much for history I think that there would definitely be a fact on one of these days that would interest me and for that I would be exciting to use this app in class!

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