Timelines with Tiki-Toki

Time lines are a great way to aid students in comprehending texts across many content areas and grade levels. Students are more likely to understand a sequence of events and their relationships to one another when they are presented visually (Himmele & Himmele, 2009). Additionally, they are fantastic vehicles for doing research, being creative, and sharing and publishing information.

One great resource where teachers and students may create beautiful multimedia timelines easily is Tiki-Toki. With Tiki-Toki, you are able to create timelines within your browser and add text, photos, and videos. These timelines then can be shared with anyone using a unique URL.

Here is a screen shot linked to a timeline entitled "The Fight for Democracy in the Middle East."



Tiki-Toki would be a great tool to develop timelines for history projects, like the one I posted above. Storylines based on books students are reading can also be charted on a Tiki-Toki timeline with events corresponding to the beginning, middle, and end with details added to each. Additionally, Tiki-Toki's timelines lends itself suitable for charting scientific processes during a lab experiment as well.

Tiki-Toki is suitable for ELLs of all levels. Beginners can choose to include more visuals and less text, while more advanced ELLs can add more details for each event. Tiki-Toki is more suitable for intermediate to secondary grades for independent use. However, with younger grades, teachers may project Tiki-Toki in front of the class and have the whole class create a timeline together.

In order to use Tiki-Toki, users must register with their name, a password, and e-mail. Basic membership is free, whereas the Education account which includes more features is $100 a year.

References
Zwiers, J. (2007). Building academic language: essential practices for content classrooms, grades 5-12. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc Pub.