by Mauro Pasi
The number of edtech tools available to teacher grows larger and larger everyday. One of the newest addition is MyHistro, a website that lets teachers create free timelines online.
Before creating myHistro, the company with Estonian roots (like Skype) had a similar website, Histrodamus.ee, that won them several awards in Estonia. The purpose of the website was to visualize a geolocated timeline of the history of Estonia. But Web 2.0 is all about collaboration and content creation rather than content consumption, an argument that prompted the developers to create myHistro. On myHistro teachers have access to same award winning design and functionality of the previous website and can create free interactive and geolocated timelines to use in the
classroom.
These timelines are a great visual aid to have during a lesson or a presentation as well as great studying material to prepare for a test. They have the advantage of appealing to students who are used to concepts like “interactive” and “social” and can easily apply them to history learning. The timelines are accessible from anywhere, even from mobile devices, thanks to myHistro’s iOS and Android apps, and absent students can easily catch up with what has been taught in the class.
The strongest asset of these timelines lies in their user interface that gives a clear picture of the whats, whens and wheres of history. I remember when I was a student myself I would simply memorize names and dates without actually ever connecting the dots. Thanks to myHistro now the dots are all there in one simple view, ready to be connected.
The timelines can be played like a slideshow during a lesson or browsed through in whatever order the students find logical. After all we all have a different learning process. Teachers have already been using them as assignments too. They are a great way of testing a student’s understanding of a topic as well as his or her research skills. Students can be engaged to work online to find sources and pictures for their assignment individually or even in group, thanks to features like co-autoring, tags and following.
“A timelines is worth a thousand words” so here is an example of a student’s work. (link)
I am sure that having had to pin point every single battle in time as well as in space the student now has a very clear picture of what happened, where and when. Don’t you agree?
