The other night I was scrolling through the app store on my iPhone, looking for new games to play, when I stumbled upon a section of AR education apps. An app called Herstory jumped out at me because we are currently in Women’s History Month and I was curious to see how AR technology was being used.
When you open the app, the loading screen reads “Lessons in Herstory brought to you by the daughters of the evolution.” The home screen then offers two options. You can use the app to scan images of men in U.S. history textbooks to learn about their female counterparts, who are often listed as an afterthought or not at all. The other button is “I don’t have a textbook.” I selected that option because I didn’t have a history textbook on hand.
This leads to a screen that has a glossary of women’s profiles and an invitation to experience the AR technology by scanning images from their website. For a second I was really confused on how I would be able to use my phone for both, but then it dawned on me that I would have to use a separate device. Once I had the website open on my laptop, I scrolled to the bottom of the page and found a slide gallery of male U.S. history figures, like Zachary Taylor and “Gold Rush Man #2.”
I reopened the app and clicked “Start scanning.”
There are only a few profiles on their website, but it demonstrates how the app functions with a textbook. The app is able to recognize the man and an animated image appears to give biographical information of a woman from the same period in history. For example, when I scanned the image of Jim Bridger, he was replaced by Nellie Bly, who was inspired by Bridger to become an explorer and went on to travel the world in 72 days.
While this app is definitely limited in its uses, I would have loved interactive technology like this when I was in high school. This app is great for anyone studying U.S. history to make those textbooks a little less dry and onesided. If you’re interested in learning about lesser-known female figures in U.S. history, their website has the graphics available as still images. It’s definitely worth a look the next time you’re procrastinating on an assignment!