Timetoast in Telecollaborative Projects: How 2.0

It has been a while since I posted about timetoast, so if you don't remember timetoast is a site where students can interactively create a timeline with pictures, links, and add descriptions.

I was thinking today that timetoast is a great tool by itself however since I spoke about the livebinders being able to link to different websites, wouldn't it be great if to link those two tools together! Instead of having the students write a blog (which is blocked by Baltimore County) the students can type out their feelings, questions, concerns, or revelations they have each day. As they update their timeline it will also reflect in their livebinders tab. This could be a great way to spark conversation between the schools, groups, or even a class discussion. Even though timetoast does not offer a discussion feature, however on livebinders they do offer a comment feature which comments on the whole binder not a specific section.

Timetoast could be a great tool to also share and monitor everyone classes progress. Below is a timeline for a project my students and I did this year (I made the timeline but next year will expect them to keep their own timeline).

If the students/teacher/project wanted the students to use a wiki as their main communication tool the students could embed the interactive timeline right on the wiki page.

Educational Uses for Timetoast: How 2.0

As I mentioned before timetoast is an interactive timeline for students. During work today I thought about some of the educational uses for timetoast and came to an important realization.

Since I teach in Baltimore County our students only receive username and passwords and are never given email accounts or access to any type of email. You may be asking yourself why this is a problem, well the real problem lies when you sign up for a timetoast account. When you sign up they require you to make up a username and password and you must also give an email address to get the activation code. Therefore if you teach at a school which does not allow or provide students with email accounts here are some alternatives to still using timetoast.

If you create a timeline you would like to share with the class to have them discuss you can actually embed the code into a wiki or any other site that allows you to share or embed html or javascript.You can also create a timeline as a class or let groups use your account to create the timeline and then embed them to the wiki.

Embedding a timeline into a wiki is pretty simple. First: Choose the timeline you would like to embed, at the bottom it says embed/share. Second: Copy the embed code. Third: Make sure you are in the edit section of your wiki and click on the Insert Plugin. Fourth: Under the HTML and Gadget section, choose HTML/Javascript. Fifth: Where it says enter code here, paste the embed code. Sixth: Click Next, then Insert Plugin, then Save. When you go back to View your wiki you should see the timeline.

Education Ideas:

• History Projects (chapter topics or the life of specific historical figures)
• Science (to keep track of how different plants grow or the evolution of different species/theories)
• Personal (have them do a personal timeline about things they have done)
• Math (have them do a timeline on their allowance and see how their money grows or decreasing depending on if they spend their money)
• Reading (Discuss how a character changes over a period of time in a specific book or reading)
• Music (Have the students log their practice hours to reflect on how they have gotten better by practicing more or the evolution of different instruments)

These were just some ideas of how you might be able to use these timelines to increase the discussion and to help students become more reflective learners, when they look back over what they have accomplished or learned. Here is a useful timeline for Math teachers as an example of how to use timetoast in their classrooms.

What are some other ways you could incorporate timelines into your instruction?

Timetoast: How 2.0

Recently when I was at a professional development they spoke about timetoast, once I got home I had to immediately do more research because it was has so many educational uses.

Timetoast allows people a chance to create an interactive timeline. Timetoast allows you to add dates, descriptions, links, images, and titles to each event. This site is very easy to navigate and use. Some other sites are: Read Write Think, Timeline Maker, Time Rime, and Our Time Lines.

The first step is to go to their website and create an free account. When you "publish" your timeline it will be shared with all users who are a part of timetoast. In order to access timetoast you have to have flash player on your computer(you may need to disable Javascript in order to view the material).

Timetoast is a great site because focuses on differentiated instruction, here are some of the differentiation strategies it has to offer:

• appeals to the kinesthetic learner who learns by doing/being physically active


• allows students to easily and quickly demonstrate what they know


• provides more time for reflective learners because students can work from school or home


• allows the teacher to gain background knowledge on what information students have learned in previous classes


• appeals to visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile learners
  and more...

Here is an example of the history through rock and roll (created by user: rnojessica)

One feature that you can't tell from this screenshot is that every time you mouse over a dot it gives you that blurb and the one before and directly after the one you are on.

This tool has a lot of potential for actively engaging students to meet each different type of learner all in one tool!

The only downfall of timetoast that I have run into is that it does not allow you to go into B.C. time era.

Has anyone ever used any create a timeline online programs?