I’ve always had a problem with timeline projects, although they are very useful for putting information into chronological order they can be very messy and quite boring. Being a social studies teacher, there is still a need for timelines to organize information, so I decided to find a different approach to handling timelines. Several weeks ago my students were saddled with the task of completing a timeline that covers a time period from the middle ages to the industrial revolution. In order to complete this assignment my social studies were asked to use one of two websites to complete their projects, TimeToast and Dipity.

Two of my classes completed their timelines using TimeToast. This is my second year to use TimeToast to complete a timeline assignment and serves as a great tool for hosting timelines. It gives users the ability to enter single dates or time spans, upload media, and add source links; However, it does not come without it’s limitations. The time span is fairly new feature to TimeToast and therefore it does not have all the same features that entering a single event does…there are also a few other minor flaws when it comes to being user friendly but despite this minor setback it is still a great tech tool for history teachers.

My 4th and 5th period students used a website called Dipity to create their timelines. I stumbled across this website one day while searching for a new timeline website due to the fact that TimeToast was down. Dipity provided an excellent platform for hosting timelines, much like TimeToast, but includes features that are more user friendly. The method for entering dates is very easy and allows users several different ways to enter the dates. It also allows users to enter additional information such as linking websites, citations, and additional user features. The only setback was that it is really hard to share the timelines with other people. It does have a feature that allows users to share editing rights with other users on Dipity, but it is very difficult to retrieve the shared timelines.

If I had to choose one service to use for a class project, it would be Dipity…however, you can’t really go wrong with either. This is a great alternative to creating traditional timelines and provides a great opportunty to incorporate a wonderful tech tool to my students that will make their school life a whole lot easier.

Mr. McClung