Welcome back!
The caffeine question of the day is this: Is iced coffee a beverage only for the warmer months, or year-round? I’m not going to lie, but an iced coffee with vanilla and caramel during winter finals week always tastes like heaven in a cup! Comment your answer below!
This week, we are going to talk about timelines, specifically what they are, how to create one, and ways to incorporate them in the classroom. This is just one of the many resources you can add to your skill belt that we’ll talk about! Okay, timelines…what are those?
Timelines are exactly that, diagrams that express dates of births, events, and deaths specific to your desired topic. This is a great tool to use when working with visual learners who may have trouble with remembering dates to specific events. I for one was horrible at memorizing dates, but by creating timelines, I was able to connect dates to events via the images or drawing used for them. Now although these are easy to do on a piece of paper, let’s talk about how to bring them to life through digital formats. For this tutorial, we are going to be looking at Knight Lab.
Knight Lab is a free timeline-creating platform that allows users to create and download their timelines. Included on their homepage is a video tutorial of how to work the site and a quick guideline on how to create a timeline. On their site, you’re able to copy and paste their free template onto a Google Spreadsheet. From there, you’ll be able to add to the template in order to create your timeline. Now, don’t be afraid of all the columns and words that you see in the template, those are there to make your creation as smooth and easy as it can be.
After you’ve copied this template into your spreadsheet, you are then able to add each event you plan to talk about into each row. Each row you fill in will then create “Slides” for your timeline. Keep in mind when you are creating your slides, that they need to be short, sweet, and concise. Putting multiple paragraphs on one slide, putting in too many slides, jumping around different time frames, and jumping between two topics that are not relevant to one another will cause viewers to lose interest and possibly become confused. The best ways to use timelines are to describe how major events came to be. For example, the causes that lead to World War I would work great within a timeline. These are used as visual helpers for students in need of memorizing a close-knit group of dates, so have fun with it!
Once you’ve finished creating your timeline, you’re then ready to upload it. In order to do this, you will need to publish your spreadsheet to the web – copy your spreadsheet link – paste it into the URL box on Knight Lab’s homepage – customize it via fonts, language, etc. – share and voila! Your new timeline is up and ready for viewing. One thing to remember when you’re creating one is that even though you’ve published it online, you can still go back and edit the spreadsheet. This is a great reminder for when you find out an image does not work fully or you might have a wrong date placed. Just be sure to follow the publishing guidelines again in order to get the updated version to show up online.
Once again, timelines are great to use in the classroom, whether through teaching or as student projects. They allow viewers to have visuals that can be connected to the information within them. By incorporating these into lesson plans, students will be able to stay engaged with their study materials, while also giving you a fun tool to use while teaching.
Created a timeline before or just now learning how? Be sure to comment about what you decided to create one about below!
Click here to view an example of a timeline relating to the life and career of Whitney Houston found on Knight Lab.
Until next time!
THE CAFFEINATED HISTORIAN 