I will be out for Maternity leave so while I am writing this in February, it will appear in March. My students will be completing a 1920's project while I am out. They are creating posters of an assigned person from 1920's culture. They have to find someone that is like that person today, find examples of their work, have an image for the poster. They have to create a poster in a creative way (i.e. Louis Armstrong = in the shape of a trumpet, make it look like a facebook page, etc.).
The reason I have them finding a person similar to that person today is because one of the many questions I ALWAYS hear in my history classes is "Why do we have to learn this?" or "What does this have to do today?". By having them conduct this project I bring forth the point that we didn't all just magically appear here one day acting one specific way. We have developed as a society, as a world over the course of time, there are things in our past that have influenced the foundations of society whether politically, socially, economically, etc. This allows them to find connections on the social component of life from then to today. As long as the posters are still in my room when I return in May I will post some examples.
A digital version of this could be awesome if you wanted to use Thinglink or a Prezi, just to throw ideas out there. This one we will be going old school with the iPad for research, but not for creation. Apps need updating and such and don't always work right with the iPads and it will just be easier to allow students to use traditional supplies to create their end product than to have it backfire when I'm not here to troubleshoot.
