People HD – Brief History of People

People HD is an encyclopedia-type app that chronicles historical people’s lives from across the globe. For each person, People HD offers a brief biography about that person, a timeline of significant events/accomplishments in that person’s life, and memorable quotes said by that person. Additionally, there is an option that allows users to suggest other historical individuals to be included in the People HD app.

Instructional Ideas

1. Teachers can require students to research a significant person who is not listed in People HD and have students compose an email to additoppeople@gmail.com that explains why this person should be added.
2. Teachers can assign or have students select a famous individual to research. Teachers can then instruct students to create an entry for that person modeled after entries about other people who are already included in the People HD app. This entry can be emailed to additoppeople@gmail.com, or teachers can have students share their research with classmates by having them post it to a class website or by printing out the work and having their classmates read it.
3. Students can use the content within People HD as a reference when conducting research about significant historical figures.
4. Teachers can use People HD to conduct a class debate in which students have to select and rank the five most important individuals according to some criterion such as most significant person, kindest person, most intelligent person, etc. When students rank the individuals, teachers can require them to include a written justification for their rankings. Justifications can be written for each person individually or for the group as a whole.
5. Teachers can have students create critiques of existing entries in People HD. For example, a teacher could have students review the entry for Leonardo Da Vinci. Following, students could be provided with multiple resources about Da Vinci (e.g., books, videos, artwork, biographies, articles, etc.) for which they would be instructed to review these materials and locate key information about Da Vinci. Finally, teachers have students re-read Da Vinci’s entry in People HD and critique it for both information that was included and for information that could be added to make the entry more complete.

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