As Carl Sagan once said, “You must know the past to understand the present.” But great history teachers know that doesn’t mean you need to rely on ancient teaching tools.
Fortunately, cutting-edge digital software – most of it free – can breathe new life into history classes, allowing students to enter historical places, talk to long-dead presidents or kings, and experience the times in a way that can change their perspective.
Matthew Farber, associate professor of educational technology at the University of north Colorado, writes that while it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, the best digital tools are those that “support student engagement because they build rich and meaningful relationships with people from the past. of the past” are those that “support student engagement as they make rich and meaningful connections to the past.
We’ve compiled a list of seven teacher-tested tools and how educators can use them to improve the quality of teaching and learning and make history more relevant than ever.
AI-Generated Images Add Interest to Lessons
AI image generators are fun, but they also help drive critical thinking in the history classroom. James Beeghley, a history educator and educational technologist, explained in a presentation at ISTE 2023 that teachers can use them to generate fantastic images from before photography came along. In his U.S. history class, Beeghley had the AI generate photographic-style images, such as the signing of the Constitution and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which he then added to his class reports. World history teachers can go even further back in time; for example, they can ask the AI what the Roman Colosseum looked like when tourists flocked to it. Teachers can generate these images using free image generators from Bing, crayon, or Canva, and then put them into classroom presentations. (We recommend specifying “photographic style” in the prompt for maximum realism.)
Beeghley warns that AI image output is often riddled with inaccuracies, but it can help create an engaging lesson. After generating a fake historical image based on your current unit of study-perhaps one that’s intentionally deceptive, such as two famous figures who have never met-challenge students to point out all the flaws and period errors they can find.
Canva’s new AI image generator can produce photorealistic images of historical events that never happened, such as John F. Kennedy meeting Mahatma Gandhi.
ICivics Offers a Short Game on Governance
Founded by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the nonprofit organization iCivics aims to improve civics education in the United States through free games. Unlike many other educational sites, the games have a modern feel – not like they’re from the days of dial-up Internet access.
Thanks to iCivic’s games, “When I teach social studies to middle school students, I observe their engagement with content that might otherwise be boring to 12- and 13-year-olds,” writes Matthew Farber. “For example, to help students understand the Bill of Rights, I have them play ‘Do I Have Rights?’ , a game in which players learn from the experience by running a civil rights law firm.” Other games include County Work and LawCraft, which require students to draft a bill and work to get it passed in Congress.
iCivics now has about 20 different games, each lasting 10 to 30 minutes. After students play the games, “the next step for the teacher is to create a great performance assessment-although iCivics offers great reflection activities for students to use after they play the games,” Director of Social Studies Andrew Miller) noted.
AI History Chatbots are Fun Fodder for Critical Analysis
While history teachers can’t invite Napoleon or Eleanor Roosevelt as guest speakers in their classrooms, AI can help students “interact” with historical figures. In a presentation at ISTE 2023, educational technology professor Maureen Yoder suggested that teachers take a look at Hello history, a chatgpt-based app that lets students talk to dozens of figures from around the world, from Cleopatra to Mahatma Gandhi.
The app is free until users reach a limit of 20 messages per day-so another option is to go straight to ChatGPT and prompt it, “Please play Thomas Edison in the next conversation.” The AI did a pretty good job of staying in character when we tried it, and countered the claim that he stole ideas from Nikola Tesla by saying, “In the world of invention, it’s not uncommon for individuals to draw from each other’s work and build on existing ideas.” Although it misrepresents Edison’s childhood hearing loss, implying that he did not suffer from partial deafness until later in life.
But it also provides an opportunity, as the dubious quality of AI-generated information can be part of an assignment. Before students write their biographical essays, historian and history educator Jonathan S. Jones has them scrutinize ChatGPT’s history-related output for “factual errors and missing information about key contexts,” then spend some time editing the AI’s output to correct errors and inaccuracies.
Minecraft Provides Practical Understanding of Ancient Architecture
When ancient or famous buildings are featured in the classroom, students can gain a deeper understanding of how they were built. To accomplish this, some teachers are using minecraft-a popular game that lets players gather resources and build blocky structures out of wood, stone, and more.
In a lesson on ancient Egypt, for example, students can dive into a My World digital world “in groups of two or three” to gather resources and “create structures that show where the Egyptians ate and lived,” Meenoo Rami suggests. ” suggests Meenoo Rami, a former English teacher in the My World mentorship program. Or, instead of a blank world, a teacher could help students load up on a prefabricated curriculum for Minecraft education. One course teaches building pyramids; another has students reconstructing UNESCO-recognized monuments in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan; another has students rebuilding the interior of the Titanic. My World in Education isn’t free (unlike the other tools on this list), but administrators can purchase a subscription at a discounted price on a school-wide basis.
Google Art & Culture Game Makes Art History Fun
If your history class covers art movements, cultural eras, or ancient artifacts and monuments, then Google Arts & Culture is likely the site of your dreams. This free-to-use site boasts incredibly diverse resources: thousands of digitized artworks, 3D models of famous buildings and sculptures, and 360-degree virtual walks through museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Google Arts & Culture also offers a wide variety of educational games. Here are two of them.
- Odd – Players must try to identify ai-generated “imposters” hidden next to three real artifacts or works of art. (For example, “Find the AI-generated throne.”) Students click on any real artifacts to learn more about them. There’s also a media literacy aspect:The more kids play, the better they’ll be at recognizing AI-generated images based on signs such as a lack of specific detail and fuzzy edges. (Though that can be hard to do even on your 20th try.)
- 3D Pottery-Another challenging game, this one requires players to maneuver a spinning ball of clay and recreate ancient pottery pieces from around the world. Students get hands-on experience with this ancient art form without the need for real clay.
Recorded Podcasts Turn Students into Historians
Podcasts are all the rage. However, some history teachers are encouraging students to produce their own podcasts instead of having them listen to them.
In her ISTE presentation, Maureen Yoder suggested having groups of students write podcasts that include conversations between never-before-seen real-life figures, such as Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton, or Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks. Students had to decide what these figures might say to each other based on what they had learned. Members of each group can then record the lines in text or enter the script into text-to-speech software. Groups can edit the podcast together using free audio editing software, such as Audacity.
In addition to historical fiction podcasts, students can become real historians by recording and archiving conversations with community elders. Inspired by StoryCorps, a nonprofit organization that aims to preserve the stories of Americans of all backgrounds, Kevin Brookhouser, director of technology and innovation, had his students prepare a list of questions and record conversations with their grandparents. “It’s more than just sharing family stories; it’s the scholarly work of a historian, creating a first-hand account for future scholars as we piece together the past.” Brookhouse explained that recording is easy; students can use a free online recorder on their phone, tablet or Chromebook.
Mission US Offers Free Games About U.S. History
Many U.S. history teachers appreciate Mission US’s story-oriented games. Complete with voice-overs and animated transitions, these games put students in the role of a fictional child from a real era of U.S. history and make difficult moral and strategic decisions. In one of the games, For Crown or Colony? Rebecca Rufo Tepper, director of digital learning and a former public school teacher, writes, “Students will take on the role of a printer’s apprentice in Boston in 1770, encountering Patriots and Fidelityists before and after the Boston Massacre.” “The goal is for students to choose where their loyalties lie. In the process, they will empathize and explore issues of freedom, equality and perspective.” Rufus Tepper suggests playing the game together on a whiteboard, having the class discuss what choices they want to make, and then having students play individually.
Other games on the site include 1866, Western Expansion: Cheyenne Odyssey; 1907, The Immigrant Experience: City of Immigrants; and 1960, The Civil Rights Movement: No Turning Back. It’s worth noting that each game takes 1 to 2 1/2 hours to complete, so it’s not possible to finish them all at once. However, the site does save progress through a free account, so history teachers can spread the gameplay over multiple class periods or use it as homework.