A Time line with Time toast

Hi everyone! 

I would like to write a reflection on the use of TimeToast in class. I have used this tool with a group of the fourth year of CSE. As the Book Day is celebrated on the 23rd April, I thought that I could relate this activity with this Day. Therefore, I asked my students to work in pairs. I provided them with biographies from different English-speaking authors and I explained them how to use Timetoast. Then, I asked them to design a timeline based on the text assigned. 

After publishing the time lines on Google classroom, my students were supposed to write a biography using the information provided in other group’s timeline. This way, they evaluated their partners’ work and they practiced writing and the different past tenses. 

The learning objectives of the activity are understanding a biographical text, identifying important details and essential information from a text, improving the use of ICT and managing team work. 

I consider that this type of tools is very useful for our subject and for our students as they are able to work on reading comprehension from a different perspective. In addition, since they work in groups, they help each other and they analyze information together so as to know which items are important and which of them are additional ones. 

When preparing the activity, students told me that the use of Timetoast was very easy for them and they did not face any special difficulties. The only thing that I would improve the following time would be explaining which dates and events are the most important for a timeline because some groups had longer texts and they were not able to summarize the information provided. 

Here you have the link to the timeline which received the highest mark according to the objectives of the activity: 

https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2010538