A Time line with TimeToast

➢ Learning objectives of the activity:

I wanted my students to learn about women who have been relevant in history due to the things they have done to make our world a better place to live in.

To achieve this goal, I elaborated several texts with information about the life of these women: Rosa Parks, Malala, Frida Khalo… After reading the texts my students had to create a timeline with the main events and using TimeToast.

➢ The advantages of using TimeToast for this activity:

I´d say that the main advantage of using Timetoast was the motivation my students showed when doing the activity. Reading is usually boring for them but this time they had fun.

Another advantage was the opportunity to work in a cooperative way. I could see how they helped each other and how everybody knew what their role in the group was.

They learnt a creative way of making a timeline.

➢ The steps I followed to set up the activity:

- First I told my students what the next lessons would be about.

- Second I told them what the final activity would be: elaborate a timeline using an application called TimeToast.

- Third I explained the activity would be done in groups of three and for that we would need laptops with Internet connection. I did it with my group in the 3rd year of ESO.

- After that I told them how the application worked and showed them some examples.

➢ Any problems and how I and my students solved them:

Laptops at school are old, slow and Internet connection was not the best in history. In the end we decided to do it one group after the other all together on the digital board.

➢ Students’ reaction – how did they feel about using TimeToast to complete the task?

As it was the first time for them using this tool, they were excited and motivated. Soon, they became anxious and a bit frustrated because of all the technical problems we had. Finally when we took the decision of using the digital board, we had a great time doing it together.

➢ Some things that I would change / improve next time:

I’d change the technical equipment but it is not something that depends on me.

➢ At least 3 ways that the use of TimeToast helped me achieve my learning objectives:

It motivated my students to read. It was easy to have them focused on the lesson and I put into practice some cooperative work.

Click here to see my Timeline