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TimeToast
Pros: Simple tool to help students learn sequence, growth, change, and effective visual communication.
Cons: Lack of private, shareable timelines limits student use, and the ads on the free version are a distraction.
Bottom Line: An easy to use timeline tool for one-off projects, but for sustained use teachers will need to upgrade, and ultimately the features might not be robust enough.
Create stories that show dramatic developments over time, whether they relate to global, local, or even personal histories. A timeline that tracks a steep climb in the stock market, the buildup and climax of a war, or the relocation of Native Americans will help students understand the way events progress and relate to each other. Personal stories could be just as dramatic and could provide an opportunity for self-reflection and self-awareness as students consider what counts as a milestone for them, but take note that unless students keep these timelines in draft mode they will be made public. Still, students could chart significant events in their pet's life, their family history, or their growth in relation to a particular challenge, like a fear of heights.
TimeToast is a web-based tool for creating interactive timelines. Users create a profile and add events to make a timeline. Each event can include text, a photo, and a link. The result lets you see information as a sequence -- either displayed horizontally as a traditional timeline or vertically as a list. By creating timelines, students can express how things grow and change over time, and explore the balance between written and visual description as they come up with ways of illustrating events and their relationship to each other. TimeToast's public timelines vary widely in quality, and they should be checked for accuracy if used as a teaching tool or a model for timeline creation. This range of quality is, in part, due to the fact there's no private option for timelines which would be very welcome in classrooms. As is, timelines can only be set to draft mode, or made public. The free plan allows for unlimited public timelines, but only one draft timeline. The paid plans offer much more attractive options for those using TimeToast in classrooms including collaboration on timelines, unlimited draft timelines (so students can effectively keep their work private), an ad free site, and the ability to create groups and embed timelines.
Timelines can be a useful way to present information, and can help students think more deeply about history as well as visual communication. Students can use a timeline for many classroom assignments, from a timeline of Victorian novels to an illustration of how scientific understanding of medicine has evolved to charting one's family history. As far as timeline tools go, TimeToast is easy-to-use, but could feel too simple for some students. Once they've mastered the skill of uploading text, images, and links, they could get bored with the visually limited interface that doesn’t leave much room for experimenting with different arrangements. There are thousands of public timelines to sift through and learn from; however, the lack of quality of many of them necessitates better curation than is currently offered. Ultimately, TimeToast is a fine choice especially for limited use, but more in-depth use might find the tool lacking.
Learning Rating
Community Rating
Good tool -- Could be improved
Time Toast is a simple to use "timeline" tool that students can use to display sequential events. While simple to get going, it can be time consuming if you are including repeating events that all need to be inserted individually as the program does not allow for duplication or copy/paste options.
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