D-Day First-Hand

April 13, 2018

Sometimes the best way to teach my students is to have other people teach them.  When teaching the D-Day lesson to my Grade 10 history class, I found that having having the students use the Storming Juno interactive website was the best way to teach the true horror and sacrifice of Canadian troops on D-Day.  Using the Storming Juno website, students entered augmented reality. Once watching the opening scene, students then chose a perspective of interest: Tanker, First Wave Infantry, Navy, Main Attack Infantry, Airborne, or other stories.  There are multiple emotional first-hand accounts of D-Day available from all the perspectives. I found that students were more engaged by this than me doing some sort of lesson. By utilizing this website platform and Augmented Reality, students were able to customize and take ownership of their learning experience.