Terri Johnson, my friend from Knowledge Quest maps and Apps-school.com has released 3 new mobile apps that are perfect for home educating techno families.
Nothing puts history in context like a timeline. And nothing makes a timeline more helpful than awesome visuals. Wonders of Old is a beautiful, new Timeline Book of World History. This timeline in colorful pictures is divided into streams for the different areas of the world. Wonders of Old:Ancient Timeline, that I received for review, covers time from Creation to the end of the Roman Empire. Tapping on a label (event with date) will bring up additional information about it. Tapping on a picture will bring up the wikipedia page for it. Swiping will move you down the timeline horizontally (forward in time), or to another part of the world (at the same time,) vertically. This is a thorough, informative and gorgeous timeline app. Whether you are using it along with your history studies, or you’re just swiping and tapping around to learn a variety of new things, you’ll enjoy this app. Even my dad said, “Now this is the kind of app I’d like.” It will provide hours of fun learning. The second app in this series, Wonders of Old:Medieval Timeline, was just released. It continues where Ancient leaves off and goes through the 16th century. There will be 4 apps in this series, when they are completed.
Geography should be studied right alongside of history, so you can see where things happened and get a better understanding of them. The Map Trek app is the perfect companion to Wonders of Old to do just that, and it works in much the same way. It too is divided into 4 timeperiods—with just the first, Ancient, currently available. Along the (more simplified) timeline are labels (and some map pics) of key happenings. Tap the label and a map of the event opens up. The maps are clearly labeled and have drop pins at points of interest. Tap a pin and information about the location, related to the event, opens up. You can pinch and spread to zoom in and out. These interactive maps can be used along with your pen and paper mapwork you do for your journals, or as a standalone enrichment activity.
These apps provide a fun, interactive way to enrich your studies of history and geography. They can be purchased (inexpensively) through Apps-school.com or directly at the iTunes App Store.
Sounds great.