In DIHR? the player manages a legal firm specializing in constitutional law. The player first selects whether to do the "Full Edition" of rights throughout the Constitution or "Bill of Rights" which focuses on rights within the first 10 Amendments. He or she then customizes their lawyer and chooses a partner lawyer who specializes on a right. The game takes place over seven rounds, each representing a day. In each round the player tries to earn as many prestige points as possible for the firm by taking on clients and winning their cases. This involves a three-step cycle.

First the player greets a new client. The client then presents their story and the player must determine whether the client's constitutional rights have been violated. Clients whose rights have not been violated must be told so and sent away. Clients whose rights have been violated, on the other hand, must be introduced to a lawyer specializing in the relevant amendment that protects those rights. As the player successfully completes rounds, each lawyer in the firm has the chance to level up. Doing so unlocks a specialization in one new right protected by a constitutional amendment. Each lawyer can learn three additional areas of expertise. George Sayit, for example, begins with freedom of expression. The player can, through successful gameplay, unlock George's ability to plead cases on the freedom of religion, right to vote regardless of race, and, finally, right to vote regardless of gender. The player can ultimately hire six lawyers, each of whom can have four areas of expertise. As a result increasing numbers of different constitutional scenarios can be brought up in each successive round of gameplay.

Appropriately for a game promoting learning, the player needs more than luck to succeed. Failure to send away clients with illegitimate complaints and failure to match legitimate clients with the right lawyers will subtract from the player's prestige score; success adds to the score. The stories of clients whose rights have not been violated tend more to the absurd. Some such as "Do I have a right not to learn to read and write?," however, may challenge schoolyard folk wisdom. The legitimate claims are often straightforward, though posed in a variety of ways. A player who is shaky on the exact rights guaranteed by the constitution, however, will need to think about each client's story carefully. Further, even those with a stronger recollection of the amendments can be misled by some claims if inattentive. A good example: "I want to be on a jury. Yesterday, my state governor announced that Asians can no longer serve on a jury. I am a U.S. citizen and I am 18 years old. Do I have a right to be on a jury?" References to age and ethnicity could trigger a player's associations with the incorrect amendments. Even if the client has a legitimate claim, matching his case to the wrong amendment will deduct from the player's prestige.

At the end of each round, the player gets a summary of his or her performance. This takes the form of a newspaper that includes descriptions of the cases and relevant constitutional issues from the round. After the summary, the player can spend any earned prestige points to improve the firm—an important motivator since success at matching clients and lawyers leads to tangible gameplay bonuses. New lawyers can be hired, allowing the player to handle a greater variety of cases and win more prestige. In addition, each lawyer's desk can be enhanced with bonus items. These increase that lawyer's speed in handling cases, likelihood of learning a new area of constitutional law, or the prestige gained for a successful case. Finally, improvements can be made to the waiting area to increase the number of clients it can hold and the amount of time they will wait before storming off in rage—a feature that becomes especially important in later rounds as the number of clients increases.

At the end of the game the player is given a score report with a breakdown of play. This will help teachers identify areas of the amendments that the player needs to review more. The ease of the control system and the core gameplay are important features of the game, adding to its suitability as a classroom tool. At the start of the game, onscreen hints helpfully label important areas of the firm and the screen—these hints can be left on or turned off at the player's discretion. All decisions are made through clicking on the relevant button or area in the game with the mouse. For those who still would like more guidance, there is even a teacher's guide that provides a detailed description of the game written for those less familiar with game motifs.

At its heart, DIHR? is a drill game. Unlike many other drill games, however, the focus on application as well as identification promotes a higher level of learning than many of its peers. Ultimately, DIHR? is well designed to achieve the goals of its designers. The playful and attractive graphics, core gameplay, and upbeat soundtrack make the game inherently engaging. The end-of-round system for leveling up lawyers and buying improvements will motivate players to continue playing, trying to improve their scores. Since maximizing one's score is best achieved by knowing the amendments well, DIHR provides an engaging and effective tool to learn basic constitutional rights.

When first arriving at the NewsTrust website, you will see a variety of news stories and broad current event topics. Registering for an account is not necessary to explore the site and the wealth of rich resources that lie within it. Click on 'Guides' in the top menu on the homepage to gain access to the educational resources. If you would like to register for an account, click the sign up button in the upper-righthand corner of the homepage. Sign up is incredibly easy and quick. Once you have completed registration you can start the process of evaluating news sources inside a collaborative, social network. If you intend to sign up your classes, the students would go through the same procedure for registration. You can use the resources of NewsTrust in layers. The supplemental materials, including a guide to thinking like a journalist, work through a variety of readings and activities to analyze bias, sourcing, and perspective. If you want more than the instructional supplements, you can also set up groups for your students and jump into actually evaluating the news alongside the burgeoning NewsTrust community. Within the community, students can participate in challenges such as News Hunts. A News Hunt is described as

. . .a bit like a scavenger hunt for quality news and information on important public issues. Each News Hunt lasts one to two weeks, during which NewsTrust members collaborate with a variety of partners to review a wide range of news stories on a chosen topic. At the end of the week, we recommend the best (and worst) news coverage on that topic, based on ratings from our community.

Although NewsTrust often sponsors these events, there is nothing stopping a classroom teacher from issuing their own News Hunt to the class. Digging up 'the news,' scavenger-hunt-style, can bring home its relevance to students. Similarly, the NewsTrust Truthsquad actively collaborates with FactCheck.org and the Poynter Institute. Truthsquad members "help fact-check controversial statements from politicians, media pundits, and public figures." I intend to use participation in the Truthsquad in one of my classes to hone my students' skills for fact checking, research, and logic.

The YouTube video hosting site, like the Google search engine, has so utterly dominated the market that there are probably few people who haven't heard of it—amazing for a company only six years old! With success, however, comes obstacles for educators. The content on YouTube is diverse and many school system administrators have blocked YouTube for that very reason: just as students can find interesting and educational videos to better understand history, they can also be distracted by non-educational content (some of which might be inappropriate). Regardless of school system filters and restrictions, YouTube can enhance the teaching of history. Here are some tips and considerations to keep in mind. One strategy is to use YouTube for planning purposes at home or at work. Whether you sign up for an account or simply browse, begin by looking through available YouTube channels. YouTube EDU (youtube.com.edu) offers videos aimed at educators from many institutions of higher learning. A quick search for "civil war" within the YouTube EDU portal yields a variety of engaging videos that provide usable content (note: many of the videos in this search are lectures, but others include vodcasts—such as an examination of Winslow Homer by Duke professor Peter Wood).

Working with Google Maps is simple enough, but users will (of course) need to establish a Google account in order to create a map. After signing in, the first step is to provide the map with a title and description, as well as establish privacy and share settings; the map is already in edit mode. Text can be entered in plain or rich text—great for inserting links. Users will see three icons in the left corner of the map: a hand (navigation tool), a marker pin (with over 90 icons), and a jagged line (to draw lines and shapes). To create a marker, select the corresponding icon and select style and click on the desired location on the map. After entering a title, users can select the rich text format to not only insert hyperlinks but also add images to the marker by selecting the image's URL address. In addition, you can embed a Google Video or YouTube clip by copying the embed code and pasting it into the description field. To create a line, users can simply click at the beginning point, click at subsequent locales, and double click to finalize the desired route. Creating lines using existing roads may be a useful for tracing travel and trade routes.

Two more tool options are found at the top of the left bar, above the title of the map: "collaborate" and "import." The collaborate function—which allows users to invite others to help create and edit a map—is ideal for group projects. Teachers can also use this function to collaborate with colleagues teaching a similar course. Either way, Google Maps facilitates collaborative learning and helps teachers extend and refine their lessons through an interactive medium that promotes critical decision making. The import option allows users to add map data from a KML, KMZ, or GeoRSS file. This is a very useful tool if teachers are able to find good historical "overlays" for their maps. A brief search for historical KMZ files yielded several good imports, such as battles of the Civil War, significant cities of the Civil Rights Movement, and U.S. presidential elections (using search terms like "historical maps KMZ" or "KMZ historical places" is a good way to start . . . but the development of these types of files is still growing so it may take some searching). Google Maps does have some glitches. Creating routes using the "line drawing" tool is tricky. Starting points do not always appear where you click to select, and editing an existing route is difficult; the pointer on the screen does not always match the marker boxes designed to click and drag to a new point on the map. In creating our own map, we also ran across an interesting problem. We created a map with markers and descriptions, but when we accessed it at a later date, the information appeared but all the markers on the map disappeared. Furthermore, the links in the information panel were no longer active. We would recommend creating a database on an Excel spreadsheet first, using columns such as "latitude, "longitude," "name,", and "icon." Then you can convert the Excel document into a KML file by using an online site such as Earth Point, which does an excellent job of providing a step-by-step process on how to create a "KML-friendly" Excel spreadsheet, lists the various ways to enter longitude and latitude coordinates, provides the numbers for hundeds of different marker icons, and also has a feature where you can make the conversion on the Earth Point site. A new KML file will be downloaded onto your computer, which can then be imported in Google Maps. Voila! All the markers appear, with descriptions in place.

[Note: it is highly recommended to use the decimal format for coordinates. Excel spreadsheets only accept negative values in the decimal-coordinate format. Any location in the Western and Southern hemisphere is a negative coordinate.] Although such a process sounds tedious, we found that this extra step is useful if you want to continue editing a map, or, more importantly, if a glitch causes the information on Google Maps to disappear. You can import the KML file into your Google Map at any time and replace the old one. Consider the KML file a Google Maps "backup" file.

Luckily Voki allows users to practice creating an avatar without enrolling or creating a new account. You can choose characters from various categories and several obvious historical personas are available like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and modern-day political figures. Each avatar can be customized by head, clothing, accessories, and various voice options. Users can also select background images and resize the avatar in relation to the player window. After selecting the voice option, users can enter text and listen to the voice that is created. Likewise, if users want to record their own voice they can also playback their recording until satisfied.

Once the Voki avatar is created, users can publish their creation. By registering an account with Voki, all Avatar creations are saved under the user's account for continual access. If users forego the registrations, the finalized avatar does contain a unique URL link (which should be copied down for later access.) Users can also use the embed code to immediately post or bookmark the avatar in whichever social network site they prefer.

Whether users want to embed their avatar on their own site, in an email, or a course blog, these creations can liven up any history class.

Although registering is not required, it is free and easy to do via Padlet's own registration portal, or using a Google (or Open ID) account. Once users are registered, they can create their first bulletin board and (in the top left corner) edit the title and description of the "wall." Teachers can create a topic, or simply post a question for students to answer. Users can also edit the image associated with the wall, which functions as an identifying logo. (Students looking to create a World War II wall could use, for example, a propaganda poster like Rosie the Riveter as the logo.) Lastly, users can select the design template and set access privileges (which includes a custom URL ID).

After the wall is established, users can add a "post-it" note by double-clicking anywhere on the wall. Text, audio, video, and images can be posted to the wall (videos and images automatically display a Zoom picture when clicked on—a temporary pop-up window for viewing.)

[Note: Do not place any "sticky notes" too close to the wall title and description. If the top of the sticky note is hidden underneath the wall title and description, it can be hard to move the note.]

Registering with Little Bird Tales (LBT) is quick and easy; the focus on small learners means that privacy concerns are respected: the site contains no ads, merchandising, or external links, and only requires a valid email to sign-up. LBT also offers a teacher account, which is accessible via an email request (teachers should provide the same email used to sign-up). Before working with students, teachers should be aware of the technical specifications, such as supporting browsers, image file size, and storage capacity—the FAQ page addresses these points fairly well.

Once an account is activated, creating a digital tale is fairly simple. Click on "create a new tale" to construct the tale cover. Users can either draw an image—using the built-in art pad—or upload a saved image (note: minimum image size is 600x420 px). Add a title, submit author information, and a record an audio introduction to finalize the tale cover. Users should also test microphone quality for volume and clarity before proceeding with new pages.

Each subsequent page follows the same procedure, and the size of the final project is only limited by the tale box capacity in your account. The main difference from the cover page is that students can enter text for their product—an ideal feature that reinforces reading and writing, while providing students a "script" for their sound recording. Page order can be easily rearranged at any time by dragging each page into the desired order in the sidebar found on the right.

Users can resume editing their tales by logging back in, selecting "My Tales," and clicking on the notepad icon. Other icons on the "My Tales" screen include a play option (to see the video in progress), an email icon to share the video, and a trash icon to delete the tale project.

Once the video tale is completed, users proceed to step three in order to share the tale via email—regardless of whether users choose to keep the video private or make it public. Users who choose to make the video public can do so by clicking on the account homepage (house icon) and selecting "public" under the cover page image (note: Little Bird Tales moderates all videos before they become public).