Timelines are wonderful visual tools that can help students understand concepts and demonstrate learning. While timelines are valuable in the education field, they tend to be very paper based, two-dimensional products. What if there was a way to make timelines more interactive and available to a global audience? For today’s tech snack, I will introduce you to a tool that allows you and your students to make interactive timelines.
Today’s tech snack can be found at the following url: https://www.hstry.co/ The new url for this tool is: http://sutori.com.
What is it?
Hstry.co is an online tool that allows you and your students to create interactive timelines. With this tool, you can create timelines that include pictures, text, video, and audio clips. You can also add interactive quizzes and provide comments/feedback to any timeline. Hstry.co will work on any internet- enabled device including smart phones, and tablets. Hstry.co is free to use, though like most web 2.0 tools, it does have a paid component to it. For the purposes of this blog, however, I will concentrate on the free program. If you want to see what is included in each version (free vs paid), check out the picture below.
To begin using hstry.co, you must first create a free account, which requires that you type in an email address, and a password. Once you have created an account, you will immediately be brought to the dashboard. From the dashboard, you can start creating your timelines by using the click and drag interface to add items to your timeline.
If you create a timeline with quizzes and feedback options in it, then students will need more than just the url to access it. In order to record quiz and feedback answers, students must have an account on hstry.co . As a teacher, you can create a class name and each class is then given an access code. When students create their accounts, they can enter that access code and then they will have access to any timelines you have shared with the class. As a teacher, you will also be able to see any timelines students in your class created and shared. You can also see feedback and quiz answers students have inputted.
Hstry.co is an excellent tool that you can use in both your physical classroom as well as a flipped/blended learning one. If you have an lcd projector in your room, you could project timelines you have created to your students. You can also embed your timelines into your class website, wiki, or school Learning Management System. Students can then access your shared timelines and use them to locate information for research or for notetaking for exams. Teachers can also take advantage of hstry.co 24 hour accessibility and have students view/review timelines from home. Students can then provide feedback to their peers as well as create their own timelines for review and/or assessment. Instead of having students take an exam or quiz at the end of a unit, why not make a project-based assessment using hstry.co? With such an assessment, students would have to demonstrate their mastery of the content by providing detailed timelines with audio, video, and text. Want to see a great example of a well done hstry.co timeline? Click here to see such an example.