DocsTeach vs History Adventures

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.

History Adventures is an interactive history learning series built around characters, choices, and consequences. It is intended for digital-generation learners and is presented as useful in world history, civics, and global studies teaching. The Empires & Interconnections installment covers 1450–1750 through six researched characters across four continents, with content designed to align with AP World History standards. Learning activities include 360° panoramas, decision-making, historical documents, animated illustrations, interactive infographics, and assessments. That installment is available for iPad, Android tablets, Apple Books, and Mac computers with an M1 chip. The wider series also includes a Chromebook web app, an iPad and responsive web app, and a VR experience listed for Meta Quest, Steam VR, and Pico. Quizzes and review and interactive timelines are listed features. Every installment is free to use in any setting. The series was funded by the NEH, NSF, and Qatar Research & Development Council and developed with Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development.