Mini Project #2

 
I chose to create a timeline on the program Timetoast for Mini Project #2. I created a timeline based on the Fourth Grade Science Standard 4.8: Investigate and understand relationships among the Earth, the moon, and the sun. I created a Phases of the Moon timeline using photographs of the moon from Flickr Commons.  
Timetoast is a user-friendly program. I was able to create an account and begin building my timeline in a matter of minutes. I used the free version of the program, but you can also pay for membership in order to get extra perks, such as multiple users (for collaboration). The collaborative features may be beneficial for school use. I used copyright-friendly images of the moon (Flickr Commons: www.flickr.com/commons) as well as information about the actual dates each phase would occur in the month of March (StarDate: www.stardate.org) to create my timeline. I thought about digital citizenship a lot as I was creating my timeline. Teachers would need to model and discuss appropriate images and websites as well as crediting sources well before a timeline could be created. I feel that it would be most beneficial for the fourth grade students to be given a list of the sites that they may use, whether it is provided electronically or as a hard copy (after the sites are all shown to students by the teacher). 
 
A Timetoast feature I really liked was the ability to view the timeline in Timeline View or Text View. This feature could be very beneficial for students that have trouble following the information in the Timeline view.
 
The only difficulty I encountered with my Timetoast timeline was at the very end when I was ready to make it available to be seen by the public (changing my visibility status). This problem was solved quickly after visiting the FAQ section. All in all, I believe Timetoast is a great tool that can be utilized across the curriculum.