Interactive timelines
with Google Spreadsheets and TimelineJS
Creating an interactive timeline can provide perspective on how a topic has evolved, and how events occurred along the way. You can use a timeline to document an historic event, follow the development of an individual person or a population, or identify important stages in the growth of a product or theory. Although timelines are date-dependent, a timeline can be used to portray a collection of ideas explaining or identifying different kinds of behavior, uses of color or design in objects, or other concepts. TImeline Example: http://elearning.uaf.edu/go/ccre-timeline.
Timeline JS has created a Google spreadsheet template to help you organize your timeline events. The site also provides an embed generator that creates the code you need to paste into your Blackboard course or other website for viewing. Create and publish your timeline in a quick four-step process.
Having students create a timeline, either on their own or as a collaborative group project, is an active learning activity that combines skills in research, critical thinking, and preparing a presentation or participating.
One of the great features of using the Timeline JS process is the variety of online media you can include in your story: Twitter, Flickr, Google Maps, YouTube, Vimeo, Wikipedia, Soundcloud, as examples. Plus you can add any URL to a website. You can add your own content and use some basic HTML coding for formatting.
For more information and instructions visit the Timeline JS website: http://timeline.verite.co/.
Read the steps in this week’s Teaching Tip Interactive Timelines (pdf).
