Aurelius: Learn History vs DocsTeach

Aurelius: Learn History is an educational mobile app that combines illustrated stories, quizzes and guided progression through historical eras. Its library contains more than 500 stories about ancient civilizations, battles and world-changing events; each is designed to take 5–15 minutes. Campaign Mode opens chapters as learners complete stories, and follow-up questions award XP. Players can challenge friends using custom codes or compete with AI opponents on a leaderboard. Achievements, badges, daily streaks, levels and campaign tracking record progress. The app is available on Android and iOS, with a free plan and a 3-day trial. The maker says a Pro subscription is needed to unlock the full learning experience. Pro costs $9.99 a month or $79.99 a year and includes unlimited stories and quizzes, all eras, exclusive achievements and badges, and an ad-free experience. The app can be used without an account, but locally stored progress does not sync between devices. Its terms do not guarantee that historical information is accurate, complete or current.

DocsTeach is a free interactive teaching website built around primary sources in the National Archives holdings. Its collection includes thousands of letters, photographs, speeches, posters, maps, and videos. Teachers can create activities by selecting a tool and sources, then customizing instructions. Activity formats include document analysis, discussion, compare and contrast, zoom and crop, sequencing, mapping, and interpreting data. Students can submit and save responses for a teacher to view in My Students’ Responses, or send responses by email. Teachers can share activities to Google Classroom, where students can turn in their work through its button. For lessons using other materials, teachers can upload JPG, PNG, GIF, or JPEG documents and images up to 8 MB per file. The redesigned site supports exploring and creating activities on computers and tablets, and students can turn in work through the DocsTeach App for iPad. A free account costs nothing and allows users to create, save, and share activities and primary sources, and access hundreds more educator activities. Creating an account requires a name, email address, and password.