LTC Develops "Create Your Own Timeline Tool" for Presidential Timeline Web Site - July 1, 2011

Perhaps you have lots of photos of your grandfather and would like to use them to tell the story of his life. Or, as a teacher, you’d like your students to map out the life cycle of a cicada and compare it to those of other insects. The Presidential Timeline Web site’s exciting new feature, Create Your Own Timeline, allows anyone to easily complete such projects. The new Web-based tool was unveiled June 27 by Learning Technology Center Director Paul E. Resta at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) 2011 Conference in Philadelphia.

“The presentation generated lots of interest, with over 100 people attending,” says Ken Tothero, LTC Coordinator who manages the Presidential Timeline project. Many expressed interest in wanting to use the tool and gave suggestions for features they’d like to see added to it.

The Create Your Own Timeline (CYOTL) program is very easy to use. With just a few clicks, you can create a timeline and add events to it. Each event can be given a title, which is always visible on the timeline, and description, which is revealed when the event is clicked. Digital assets, including images, documents, audio, or video can be added to any event.

CYOTL allows anyone to create their own timelines and add events and "digital assets" such as photos.

Timelines can cover a range of years, months, or days, and you can choose one of several templates for its design or create your own. You can also create “exhibits” consisting of several pages of text and digital assets that can be linked to timeline events. Timelines can be kept private, shared with specified users, or made public. Those viewing timelines can “Like” or comment on a timeline and its events or digital assets. For Ken, “the most interesting aspect of the Create Your Own Timeline tool is its usefulness in all content areas. Timelines are great ways to organize and visualize knowledge and can support learning activities in any subject.” Overlaying and comparing multiple timelines, which CYOTL supports, allows students to easily discern similarities and differences. Education specialists at the National Archives’ Presidential Libraries are currently developing a series of educational activities using CYOTL.

The Presidential Timeline features timelines of the lives and presidencies of Presidents Herbert Hoover through George W. Bush. Each displays historical resources, including audio and video clips, photographs, and documents from the collections of the presidential libraries. The LTC partnered with the libraries to develop the Web site, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation.

The Create Your Own Timeline tool will be available on the Presidential Timeline Web site for everyone to use in September. For additional information about the Presidential Timeline and CYOTL, contact Ken Tothero.

—Laurie Caldwell, LTC Communications Coordinator

Related Sites:

• Presidential Timeline