Working with TimeToast

Before explaining the task I have designed it is important to mention that all you will see here has been developed in a hypothetical scenario due to the impossibility of carrying out this methodological strategy in my classes.

Nevertheless, I’m sure I will be able to bring this fantastic activity to my next year class. Let’s get started! I have designed this project for the 4th year of CSE as I find this educational stage very challenging.  At this point, students are really accustomed to doing everything with their phones and when it comes to a foreign language they automatically get their hands on online translators without even making a minimum effort. For that reason, I aim to train students on using the new technologies properly the best I can. Regarding the skills, I expect the students to identify essential information on long texts introducing the concepts of scanning and skimming. Apart from that, taking into account that we are going to create a timeline, grammar becomes a relevant aspect as students will have the chance to work on past structures. In addition, the students will work on the importance of respecting the English culture as the topic I chose for this project is Historical Characters. 

As for the preparation, in groups of 2-3 students would choose  the character they want to present. After that, a set of webpages and videos will be given to them so as to get all the information they need to write their timelines.

Among the problems I may encounter, synthesizing and selecting the information could be one of the main problems together with some organizational difficulties. In both cases, my role will be supervising the time they spend working on the project in class.

The advantages I see using TimeToast, taking into account my experience using other online tools, are the way in which creativity and group work is boosted. Moreover, TimeToast is quite simple to use as it is very easy to distinguish what kind of information you have to add, from the date till the part you include the info. Although I couldn’t include this type of activity in my sessions, I have included an example of my expectations regarding the final result of the project.

 Edgar Allan Poe's Time Toast example: https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/edgar-allan-poe-a4d8bf02-5116-42bf-8a7a-d50cb0d4fc47