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TeachersFirst Edge Entry: for moderately adventurous technology users. Xtimeline allows you to view, create, share, and discuss interactive timelines. The sample, user-created timeline topics vary greatly: History of the Olympic Games (perfect during Olympic years), Google Company History, Biography of Mozart, Pregnancy Timeline, Timeline of Harry Potter Series, Eleanor Roosevelt, Darfur, and countless others. There are search options to help you find the timeline that you are looking for. Of course, there is also the option to create your own unique timeline and share it by URL or by embedding in your class blog, wiki, or ther web page (see example below). Many of the timelines include Flash enabled animations or videos. If you don't have Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.
NOTE: This tool opens without the narrow TeachersFirst framebar at the top that allows you to return easily to TeachersFist search results. To go to xtimeline, RIGHT click the site title and Open in new window (or tab)to be able ot return here easily.
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In the Classroom:
Skills Needed: If you only plan to VIEW timelines, no extra skills are needed at all! If you plan to comment or add a timeline, you must register. Registration requires a username, password, email address, and marking the box stating that you are OVER 13 YEARS OF AGE. To create a timeline, click on the Create link and follow the step-by-step directions. The next page will be a "fill in the blank" activity asking for the title of your timeline, language, photos, categories, tags, descriptions, and the security options for the timeline (who can edit, who can view, who is able to discuss).
Safety/Security Concerns: To protect the identity of your class and individual students, you may want to mark the boxes private (on the timeline create/edit screen). By marking the boxes private, others can't view, edit, or discuss your timeline. This eliminates many of the dangerous aspects of the public viewing your class information. If you make the timelines public, you may receive comment from outsiders("discussion"), ratings ("likes"), etc. These tools can be used within groups or privately with thsoe you specify as haing permission to veiw your timeline. These options could provide a controlled way for students to interact safely with each others' work.
Users must register to create a timeline. Registration requires a password and email address. Tip: rather than using your personal or work email, create a free Gmail account to use for memberships. If you plan to have students register individually (OVER 13 ONLY!) , You may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service.
Possible Uses: There are many uses for the already created timelines: use your interactive whiteboard or projector to learn about the history of the Olympics, famous people, events, literature, and more. Have students create timelines for research projects using Xtimeline. Use this tool to make a timeline of your class’ school year for younger classes who are just learning the graphical representation of time. Create animal life cycles, author biographies, or even timelines of the events and causes leading to a war. Make a time line using local, national, or international current events. Or look back in time and create a historical time line, scanning old pictures or using copyright free images from the Library of Congress American Memory Collection. Other ideas: artists, musicians, writers from a certain period in history, the twentieth century in different countries, World War II timeline, Civil War timeline, timeline of insect stages, timeline of the rock cycle, of a plant or tree, timeline or life cycle of migratory animals, personal timelines-- suitable for younger students only if they work with a teacher account. Have them create a timeline of the plot of a novel, interspersed with the ways themes appear throughout the novel. If you read Dickens, be SURE to create a timeline of the many intertwined characters, such as Estella and Pip in Great Expectations! If you teach chemistry, have students create illustrated sequences explaining oxidation or reduction (or both). Elementary students could even interview grandparents and create a class timeline about their grandparents’ generation for Grandparents' Day. For collaboration, link up with another classroom in another town (or another country) to build a time line that shares events in each local area so students can see what was happening at the same time in another location, maybe in the opposite hemisphere (compare weather and seasons!). In world language classes, have students create a timeline of their family in the mlanguage to master vocabluary about relatives, jobs, and more (and verb tenses!).
A Sample Xtimeline project created by the TF Edge review team appears here (click and drag to see the rest):
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