Name of the Tool: Timeglider
URL of the Tool: timeglider.com
Please select the one, primary category for this tool: Productivity Tool
Description: Timeglider is a Web 2.0 tool that allows you to create interactive timelines that can be share in a link. The tool allows you to define event times down to the minute. Events can either be single points in time, or periods of time. You can add descriptions of each event in the timeline, so that when clicked, a window will pop up with the description or information inside. The appearance of the events can be edited. For example, you can make the event label larger or smaller, to reflect the relative importance of the event. You can also change the y axis position of the event, to make appear higher or lower.
What do you need to know before using this tool? Timeglider requires only basic computer skills to use.
What do you need to have before using this tool? Timeglider only requires a web browser and an internet connection to use. To share your timelines, you need a place (e.g. a blog) to put the link to your timeline.
How do you use this tool? See Screenr video: http://youtu.be/kPsGHgU7rGY
An example of an educational resource created with this tool: Here is a link to the Charles Darwin timeline I made with Timeglider: http://timeglider.com/app/viewer.php?uid=line_a28f8a8ae376ae58f3c0f8174ff249d0
A scenario of how you might use this tool in a teaching environment: You could use Timeglider to organize a course schedule that is easy to amend and annotate. As work is completed, notes on what was accomplished on each day could be added. This would potentially help students to retain the material, as well help them to see the over all themes of the course. This tool could also be used by students to complete an assignment that requires them to put historical events into a timeline.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using this tool in a teaching environment? This would be very useful for creating timelines of historical events, including marking events down to the minute. That could be useful for, say, chronicling what happened during the Cuban Missle Crisis or the day Lincoln was assasinated.
There is a bit of a learning curve to using the tool. The main difficulty that I had was that I could not figure out why my events were disappearing, but it was because they were shrinking to nothing when I zoomed out. Once students understand how to adjust the important (i.e. size) of events they should not have much trouble using it.
I found the tool to be a little clumsy when working with very long time scales, like the Campbrian Explosion half a billion years ago. Timeglider works best with events with events that occured on calender days in recorded history.
I was curious whether the days that were lost in October 1582 when the Gregorian Calender was first adopted were in the timeline. They were, which actually makes sense, given that the new calender was universally adopted at that time, so those dates are valid for some places.
Would you recommend this Web 2.0 tool to others, or suggest that they explore a different tool? I would recommend it for a history course. If I wanted to make timelines of nature history (e.g. millions or billions of years ago), I think I would try to find a different tool.
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