Timeline tools are used to create a horizontal "scroll bar" which is laid out with text, images, or videos that correspond to specific dates or events. A user can zoom in or out to change the time scale that that is displayed on the scroll bar (for example, one week or one month or ten years, etc.). Different categories of events can be assigned different colours. Events can by linked to other online resources.
Examples:
- A timeline of a single person's life
- A timeline that covers the a thousand years in the history of one building.
- A timeline that depicts three years of political events in the Middle East.
Timeline Tools
- Tiki-Toki
- Preceden
- Timeline
- Office Timeline
- Free Timeline
- Timeglider (note that Time Glider has partnered with the New York Times so that you can search the newspaper's archives and create a timeline of the results)
Support
If you would like support applying these tips to your own teaching, CTE staff members are here to help. View the CTE Support page to find the most relevant staff member to contact.
This Creative Commons license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and indicate if changes were made. Use this citation format: Timeline Tools. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo.