What is the history behind this phone?

Here’s an idea that I’ve shared in some of my presentations over the years, but I’ve never posted it here on FreeTech4Teachers.com. Years ago when VoiceThread had a substantial free option, I asked students in one of my U.S. History classes to have a parent, an aunt or uncle, or a grandparent share a favorite memory about growing up in our area. The project worked fairly well and we collected some nice stories. I never upgraded my VoiceThread plan and those stories are long gone. But the same type of project could be undertaken by using a combination of Google Maps and YouTube or a combination of ThingLink and SoundCloud.

YouTube + Google Maps for recording and mapping local history.
With the YouTube capture app for iOS or any number of Android video recording apps (I like WeVideo) your students could record short interviews with parents, aunts and uncles, or grandparents. After uploading the videos to YouTube they can grab the link and include it in a placemark on a Google Map for which all of your students have editing permissions. In this post you will find directions for collaboratively creating a Google Map.

SoundCloud + ThingLink for recording and mapping local history.
The procedure for this activity is similar to that of the activity above. First, have your students record their interviews using SoundCloud. SoundCloud can be used to record through a laptop, on an Android device, and on an iPad. After capturing their audio interviews through SoundCloud have students place them on an ThingLink image of a historical map of your town. The ThingLink remix option allows you to upload one image to start the project then have students make their own copies to edit.