A program for creating a timeline. Specialized computer program "time tape"

SPECIALIZED COMPUTER PROGRAM "TIME TAPE"

This specialized program is addressed to those children of the senior preschool and primary school age, whose ideas about the world are narrowed,stereotyped, insufficiently differentiated, who find it difficult to matchwear figurative representations with calendar time (authors: E.L. Goncharova, T.K. Korolevskaya, O.I. Kukushkina)

The initial "point" for building a holistic meaningful map of the world around us is the life experience of the child himself. This program will help identify those children whose life experiencein the sphere of seasonal phenomena is still insufficiently comprehended. Using the exercises of the program, an adult will be able to help such children "get away" from stereotypical ideas about the seasons, limited onlyto typical features, and begin to form ideas about possible variants of the picture of the world that fit into the time boundaries of the season.

The program consists of two blocks of exercises. The first one is designed to assess and develop in children the ability to differentiate images of the world around them by seasons, the second one helps to expand their figurative ideas about each season.

Block 1. What happens when?

The block includes four series of exercises on the classification of figurative pictures of the surrounding world according to the seasons, captured in specially selected photographs. Each series contains ten photographs, and the degree of complexity of classification increases from series to series due to the complexity of the material. In the first series, it is easy for a child to distinguish between the seasons, since in each photograph one can see several bright, significant signs of a particular season. In the photographs of the second series, there are fewer such bright features. In the third series, the choice becomes even more complicated, since now the child can recognize the time of the year, relying on the bright, but the only sign of the season. Finally, in the fourth series, it is required to determine the seasons from photographs that depict people's activities or civil holidays, but do not show bright seasonal signs.

When teaching children the ability to correlate images of reality with fragments of the year, the authors recommend consistently working with series, since in this case a gradual increase in the degree of difficulty of classification tasks will be ensured. When conducting pedagogical research, it is advisable to act in the reverse order: from more difficult to easier, fixing the level of complexity of the material on which the pupil confidently and independently copes with the task.

The proposed methodology for working with each series includes three interrelated stages. They are displayed as an information "bookmark" at the top of the screen. Designed for an adult, it shows the stage of work (we classify, discuss, watch) and the number of a series of exercises, i.e. degree of classification difficulty.

Stage 1. We classify

The child is invited to view the photographs at a pace convenient for him and determine what season they depict. Photos are shown in sequence in the center of the screen. Below them is a zone that displays the passage of time and the transitions from season to season. The "tape of time" moves only in one direction - "from the present to the future", making twelve "steps" (12 months, "all year round"). The child scrolls the "tape" until the frame under the photo contains the name of the season that, in his opinion, corresponds to the image. The selection is confirmed by pressing the key Enter , after which the photo disappears and the next one appears on the screen.

If the child cannot immediately determine the time of the year, then he has the opportunity to choose the answer “I don’t know” (“I’m not sure”) and thereby postpone the decision by clicking on the on-screen button “?”. After that, the plot is remembered as “unidentified” (it will reappear at the second stage of work) and the photo is changed.

Stage 2. We discuss

After the child has classified all ten presented photos in the selected series, you can press the key Enter and move on to the next step, the "Discussing" screen. It shows the result of the previous individual classification. At the request of the teacher, the child sequentially "calls" photographs related to a particular season. It is proposed to look at the photos one by one and discuss why the child attributed them to this particular season. Each pupil here is required to argue his choice, relying as much as possible on his life experience. It is worth starting to consider photographs from winter pictures, because. these images, as a rule, are well distinguished by children, and such a beginning helps the child gain self-confidence.

If, in the process of re-examining the photo and reasoning, the child notices his mistakes made when performing the classification, he can transfer the plots from one season to another. At the same time, special marks appear on the moved photos, the color of which corresponds to the time of the year, which was initially chosen by mistake. Marking allows the teacher to see what seasons the child is still confusing. Plots unidentified at the first stage of the work also appear here with a marking - a question mark. He will tell the teacher what seasons cause the child to have difficulty in differentiation.

Stage 3. We look

Afterafter all the photographs have been discussed, the whole complex of available signs of a certain season is highlighted and described in a speech, all errors in the classification have been corrected, you can proceed to the last stage of work - the “Looking” screen. The child is returned to the model of the year, the “Tape of Time”, filled with specific figurative content, meaningful by the child and supported by his personal experience of impressions, observations and actions. By clicking the mouse on a special screen key, the child can at a pace convenient for him and for as long as he likes to consider the “picture of the year”, which he put together on his own. It is assumed that in the process of final viewing the child reacts emotionally to the results of his work. He rejoices, he is upset, he is surprised. When working in a group, it is important to arouse interest in the panoramas of the year that other children have obtained, to try to start a discussion between the authors of those “pictures of the year” that are noticeably different from each other.

If the child has a desire to perform the entire cycle of exercises again in order to change something in his panorama of the year, you should support him. Comparison of the results of the first and second experiments will help to establish the level reached by the child and the zone of his proximal development.

So for each series of exercises of this block.

Block 2. What happens in winter (spring, summer, autumn)?

With the help of the exercises of this block, the teacher will be able to expand the child's ideas about each season and begin to form his ideas about the natural variability of the world around him throughout each season, about possible options for a picture of the world within one season. The implementation of these exercises, in our opinion, will help to avoid the child's stereotypical ideas about the seasons, which include only their typical features. For this purpose, in each series of this block (Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn), photographs are used, which present variants of nature paintings during one season:

frequent, typical (for example, snowy and frosty winters);

possible for a given season, but relatively rare (thaw in winter, snow with rain, etc.);

characteristic of the off-season period, which can be equally attributed to two adjacent seasons of the year (late autumn - the beginning of winter, the end of winter - the beginning of spring, etc.).

As in the first block of exercises, the methodology for working with each series includes three successive stages of work (choose, discuss, watch).

At the first stage, the task of the child is to choose from the proposed set of photographs those that correspond to the season created on the "timeline". In the center of the screen there is an empty frame for a photo, to the right of it is a scrolling arrow, below the "timeline" and the "Yes", "No" and "?" keys. The first photo in the frame appears after clicking on the arrow. Selection of a photo for the season indicated in the menu is carried out using the on-screen buttons "Yes", "No" and "?". Each selection must be confirmed by pressing the key. Enter , then the next photo appears in the frame.

For the successful and productive work of the child, it is necessary to help him understand his task exactly, teach him to look at photographs and change them with the help of an arrow, show how to use the Yes, No and? buttons. It is important to teach the student that the choice can only be made when he has looked at the entire set of photographs. Only after such an introductory briefing can the child be allowed to act independently.

In the course of work, the child may ask for help to determine whether the depicted picture of nature belongs to the season that is set on the “timeline”. No need to rush to give an answer. So far, something else is required of the teacher: to encourage attempts of independent choice in every possible way, approving each step taken. With such an organization of activities, the teacher will be able to assess how rich the child’s experience is, how free from stereotypes, to what extent he is “open” to the perception of possible, including unexpected options for seasonal pictures of nature, how ready he is to master the signs of the off-season.

As soon as the set of photos is exhausted, the frame in the center of the screen will again become empty. This is a signal to move on to the next stage of work - to the "Discussing" screen, where the result of each child's work is presented.

Those. photographs that the child could not confidently correlate with the given season are located under the question mark and are the subject of group discussion under the guidance of the teacher. Any plot can be enlarged by clicking first on it, and then on the screen button "Magnifier". The selected photo will appear accompanied by the question: "Is this... (winter, spring, summer, autumn)?", and below it - the "Yes" and "No" buttons. If the child clicks on the "Yes" button, the photo appears on the timeline, completing the picture of the season. After clicking on the "No" button, the photo disappears.

During the discussion, it is necessary to teach the child to comprehend each choice made and justify it, showing in the photographs the signs on which he relied on when classifying plots, and also to convince partners of the correctness of the choice made, referring to personal impressions and observations. The teacher encourages children at this stage to tell specific stories from their lives, teaches them to use a story about what they read or heard as confirmation, if this is available to the child. The discussion can be organized in a child-adult pair, in a child-adult-other children group. If during the discussion the partners could not influence the choice of the child (even if it was erroneous!), it is better to leave the photo in its original place. The meaning of such discussions is that together and “out loud” children learn to do what they will then do on their own and “silently”.

As in the first block of exercises, in the final screen "Looking" the child returns to the model of the year - the "time tape", which will now present a panorama of the selected season, including a variety of paintings, both typical and rare. By clicking on a special button located under the photo, the child can view the successive pictures of nature throughout the season. If in the “Discussing” screen the panoramas of the season were discussed, which were eventually put together by the children themselves, now they are presented with a holistic and dynamic picture of the season, formed by the authors of the program. This will help expand the ideas of children, arouse their interest in the diversity and patterns of changes in nature within one season.

Having considered the main functions of the program, I will note two general advantages of it. Firstly, it is an opportunity to supplement the existing set of eighty photographs, creating for each series of exercises personalized regional sets that would correspond to the climatic conditions of the region where the children live and study, and thus reflect their real experience of impressions, observations and actions. It is advisable to create a regional set of photographs for all four series of each block, since only under this condition can one consistently increase the degree of difficulty in solving the same classification task or systematically expand the child's ideas about all seasons. But even if the images in the photographs are quite consistent with the climatic conditions of the region where the children live and study, it is useful to supplement the existing set with scenes from the life of children in a particular group or class. Parents can help in the selection of subjects by finding suitable photographs in family archives.

"Tape of Time"(English) timeline) is a timeline on which events are plotted in chronological order. Most often, the timeline is a horizontal line marked by years (or periods) indicating what happened at one time or another. Thus, you can get a visual picture of how some event developed in the chronology. Modern services allow you to "string" on the timeline not only text, but also images, video and sound. In addition, a piece of text or a picture can be arranged as a hyperlink to a third-party resource on the Internet, in which the event is disclosed in more detail.

The timeline is perfect to organize the educational process in various school subjects. The most striking example is the use of time tapes in history lessons. Thanks to the clear timeline representation and the visual design of the tape, students will be able to better imagine an event and remember it faster. The course of the Second World War, the course of a single battle, the biography of a great commander or politician - all this is perfectly visualized using timelines.

You can use the timeline in other lessons, for example, literature, mathematics, physics, geography, etc. The only condition for this is the presence of at least some kind of chronology in the content of the material being studied. So, in literature lessons, in the form of a time tape, one can represent the life path of the studied writers and poets, in geography lessons - the chronology of the development of minerals or geographical discoveries, in biology lessons - the phases of the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly, etc.

You can include your family's timeline and events, your family tree or your students' family trees, as well as some topics from the history of arts, music, science, transportation, adding variety to the organization of educational work in the classroom.

The time tape will become an indispensable assistant in teaching children of any age, both primary school and senior, facilitating the perception and memorization of time chains. Try timeline in action - and you will quickly appreciate the possibilities of this visual tool.

Services for creating timelines

1. TimeRime.com - online service for creating timelines. Working with the service is intuitive. You can add text, video, graphics, sound (mp3) to events. There is an opportunity to work together. In the free version, the storage limit for the size of the created timeline is 50 MB, the number of events on the timeline is no more than 100, videos can only be added from YouTube. For schools, universities and other educational institutions, TimeRime offers paid use of the service. This will create a closed environment that is accessible with a password for teachers and students. There are no ads in the paid account, members can only see what the teachers and students of the particular school have created.

At the moment, we have created a unique database: we have included facsimile page images of 3,000 books of the 19th and early 20th centuries, 3,900 rare maps and more than 20,000 historical illustrations and photographs. These historical works, encyclopedias, collections of documents, graphics have not been reprinted for almost 100 years - people simply do not know about them.

The Runivers project is designed for both professional historians and interested schoolchildren. Every year, 1.5 million people visit the site, they download half a million volumes from our library. They are our audience.

Gradually, our project moved to a new stage of its development - the visualization of historical data accumulated on the site. This is how the Timeline was created.

Continuity of history

We wanted not just to place various events from the history of Russia on the timeline, but to present them in the context of world history. At school and in institutes, the history of the Ancient World is first studied, then the Middle Ages, then the foreign history of the Modern and Contemporary times, and in separate textbooks - the history of Russia.

It turns out that Russian history is traditionally studied separately from world history. Because of this, many misconceptions arise that could be avoided if the educational and scientific processes were built correctly. On the Timeline, historical events are arranged in parallel. This allows us to compare and compare world and Russian history, the reign of the rulers of Russia and Europe, the most important wars and events in the history of our country.

project site screenshot

After school, people rarely have an idea of the continuity of Russian history, it is perceived in fragments. For example, everyone knows about Peter I, and the next famous ruler is Catherine II. But between them fit 37 years, three emperors and three empresses! Our project allows you to look at the history of the country without breaks.

About time coverage

The dates of the beginning and end of the first timeline are chosen as key for Russian history: 1462 - the year of the beginning of the reign of Ivan III, during which a single Russian state was formed, and 1917 - the year when the Russian Empire ceased to exist. We divided this basic series of events into thematic sections: annexation of lands, wars, rulers of Russia, England, Austria, Poland, France, Sweden. All events are annotated by the scientific consultants of Runivers.

We made a second timeline - "Medieval Russia 839-1462" - reflecting the history from 839 to 1462. We are planning another one this year - from 1917 to the present day.

About difficulties

It took a year and a half of work by historians and programmers to create the first version of the Tape of Time from 1462 to 1917. "Medieval Russia 839-1462" was done in six months. Leading experts in Russian history are involved in the preparation of materials: Anton Gorsky, Professor of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, Igor Kurukin, Professor of the Russian State University for the Humanities.

The main difficulty when working on timelines is to select from a variety of facts those that will most accurately reflect the characteristic historical processes. For the timeline for Medieval Russia, it was very difficult to display a linear change of grand dukes from different principalities.

Before the Timeline project, we released a series of paper books in a fold-out album format, complete with illustrations and maps. This year two of them were published in English. Gradually, all of them in the form of timelines will appear on our website. We plan to publish books about the reign of Peter the Great and about the rulers of Moscow.

project site screenshot

We are planning to create chronological series on political, constitutional, economic, scientific, cultural, educational, military, religious events for Russia and for the main European countries. As the project expands, the user will be able to create his own timeline from topics and facts of interest to him. There is an idea to adapt the "Timeline" for schools so that they can be viewed on interactive whiteboards.

Those who did not happen to go to school during the period of widespread computerization, it is quite possible that they drew timelines on paper. The author of this article was a participant in similar experiments: several sheets in a box from a notebook for 2 kopecks were glued so that a tape was obtained. At the bottom, a horizontal time line was drawn. a I am a scale, ten cells - a century. For each significant event, a vertical line was drawn, above which the name of the event was inscribed and its date was put down, or even an icon symbolizing the event was drawn. It must be said that this lesson was not only interesting, but also very useful. Its disadvantages were the need to erase some drawings in order to place others, and to redo individual fragments several times.

Those who had access to computers at school may have performed similar tasks in one or another graphic editor. In a computer, it is easy to set scrolling along time about th scale. Temporary a i the scale can be linear, while it is possible to compare extended events without distortion; it is sometimes more convenient to display events on a logarithmic scale, since the number of events relevant to their contemporaries is always greater in the recent past than in bygone centuries. The scale can also be scaled, as shown in Fig. one.

Rice. 1. Diagram of a scalable scale

As the red line moves, the number of displayed years changes according to the hyperbolic law, that is, instead of scrolling, a change in time is available. about th period displayed on the screen.

Today, for schoolchildren, students and all those who want to present a chain of historical events in the form of a timeline, a large arsenal of specialized tools is offered - Timeline Software. In this article, we will primarily consider projects aimed at visualizing temporal s x historical processes, and to a lesser extent - tools for automating the binding of business tasks to time about th scale. This topic can be classified as timelines, but it has other accents and therefore deserves a separate discussion.

Timeline creation tools can be divided into offline and online, that is, those that allow you to develop a project directly on the Web. Recently, extensive resources have appeared on the Internet regarding the creation of timelines, as well as ready-made projects, where you can find interesting information that is useful when creating your own projects. How to choose the best tool for developing a Timeline project and where to find information on the Web will be discussed in this article.

Offline timeline tools

Timeline Maker Professional

OS: Windows

The program is available in two editions: Timeline Maker Professional ($195) and Timeline Maker Student Lite ($49.95), and there is also a free trial version. The application allows you to automatically build a timeline and customize it according to individual wishes. The user needs to enter the initial data into a table similar to Microsoft Excel tables (Fig. 2), or import them from other applications, and then a timeline is automatically generated with a mouse click. In this case, you can customize the background and select one or another representation of events (Fig. 3 and 4).

Rice. 2. Timeline Maker Professional interface

Rice. 3. Displaying events (periods) as flags

Rice. 4. Displaying events (periods) as bars

Bee Docs'Timeline

OC: MacOS

This program is the only one of those considered that works only under Mac OS and provides a three-dimensional display of events (Fig. 5). True, the basic version, which will cost users $40, builds flat timelines (Fig. 6), and for three-dimensionality you will have to fork out - this version costs $65. There is also a free trial version.

Rice. 5. 3D Timeline Adds Depth
historical retrospective

Rice. 6. Familiar 2D view

In all options, viewing of historical events is available, which can be arranged in several layers. The user can edit events by double clicking the mouse. Timeline events can be linked by hypertext links to local files on the user's computer or to resources on the Internet.

SmartDraw

OC: Windows

SmartDraw is a $197 business graphics suite that provides a variety of charting capabilities, including Gantt charts and flowcharts, mind mapping, and a timeline builder (Figure 7). There is a free trial version.

Rice. 7. SmartDraw program interface

Timeline Creator

OS: Windows, Mac OS 9, X (requires Java and FlashPlayer)

Timeline Creator is a free tool that will help teachers and non-media development students create interactive timelines (Figure 8). The timeline obtained with its help can be published on the Internet. The program interface allows you to display up to six parallel time tapes simultaneously, which makes it possible to compare events. Events are supplied with a text commentary and may have multimedia accompaniment in the form of photos, audio or video.

Rice. 8. An example of a timeline obtained on the basis of Timeline Creator

Resource users get the opportunity to share timeline.xml files on the developer's site. This allows you to use and continue the achievements of fellow teachers.

Timeliner XE

OS: Windows (all versions)

Timeliner XE (Figure 9) is a highly advanced product ($99) that offers timeline and concept mapping tools to show objects that are not only chronologically related, but also causally related. Therefore, with the help of the program, in addition to linear chronological tapes, you can create chains of objects or even closed cycles made up of objects.

Rice. 9. Timeliner XE interface

A quick start when creating a project thanks to templates makes this product in demand among users who do not own complex media creation tools. The built-in web browser for searching information on the Internet allows you to find the desired objects without leaving the project.

excel

OS: Windows

Excel, as you know, is not a specialized tool for creating timelines, but this tool is so perfect that with proper skill it can be adapted for this purpose. On the Microsoft site, you can find a number of articles on creating timelines with Excel. For example, http://www.microsoft.com/education/createtimeline.mspx has a step-by-step description of how to create a timeline similar to the one shown in Figure 1. ten.

Rice. 10. An example of a timeline created
using Excel (non-linear scale)

If in fig. 10 timeline has a non-linear scale, then a more complex method (Fig. 11) allows you to create a full-fledged tape with a linear scale. An example of creating such a timeline is described in the lesson at: http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelArticles/create-a-timeline.html . Those who are not ready to get acquainted with the description of the technique can simply download the template (Timeline Template), which is located on the same web page.

Rice. 11. An example of a timeline obtained using Excel
(linear scale)

Contemporaries

OS: Windows

"Contemporaries" is at the same time a historical reference book, organized in the form of a timeline (about 700 figures of world and Russian history on one time about th scale), and an editor (you can add figures and events to the tape), and a set of games for orientation in history (Fig. 12).

Rice. 12. "Timeline" mode in the "Contemporaries" project

The program was developed as part of the Unified Collection of Digital Educational Resources project and is freely distributed for non-commercial use. It can be used in the study of history, as well as humanitarian subjects - world art and literature. The concept of time serves as the organizing core of the program. Two modes - "Russia" and "World" - allow to carry out work on the synchronization of historical processes, to overcome the discontinuity of the courses of world and national history.

The project is distinguished by a large amount of historical information, the ability to select and combine viewing modes, and a combination of information about various historical characters and events makes it possible to organize the educational process in various subjects. The chronological tasks of the program are aimed at developing students' skills of confident orientation in time. Game modes with their inherent excitement can increase the motivation of students to study subjects and their interest in disciplines. Students can establish a variety of vertical and horizontal relationships along the lines "man - event of the era", "figure of national history - figure of world history", "ancestor - descendant".

An analysis of the events selected to characterize any historical era and their schematic representations can become the basis for a discussion about the “image of the era”, the creation by students of creative works on selection, drawing according to available samples and justification for the choice of events characterizing a given time.

The ability to edit and add new elements to the timeline (Fig. 13) allows the teacher to create a timeline as an illustration for a particular lesson.

Rice. 13. The program "Contemporaries" makes it possible to edit
and add new elements

OSZ ChronoLiner

OS: Windows

The program was created as part of the Unified Collection of Digital Educational Resources project and is freely distributed for non-commercial use. "ChronoLiner" is a tool that allows you to integrate various information sources based on chronological relationships. Includes a tool for visualizing, analyzing and printing the collected information.

The main module of the OS3 ChronoLiner 1.0 software package allows you to work with timelines prepared in OS3 ChronoLiner 1.0. Editor”, in which multimedia objects can be integrated into the timeline.

The program provides for printing the structure and contents of the time line. Moreover, you can print any of its representations - in the form of a scale of various types, a book or a chronological table. It is possible to print both single time lines and their various combinations, synchronized in time. about th scale. And with the help of a special numbering of printed sheets and "reference" points on them, showing the alignment lines of adjacent pages, you can create wall posters. Depending on the needs of the subject, the teacher can choose timelines from the set included in OS3 ChronoLiner 1.0 or create new ones.

The timeline can be presented in different forms: with detailed event cards (Fig. 14), with short cards with event names (Fig. 15) and in a compact form, in which each event is marked on the screen with a dot that works as a button with a tooltip when you hover over it with the mouse (Fig. 16).

Rice. 14. Timeline with detailed event cards

Rice. 15. Mode of displaying brief information on events

Rice. 16. "Compact" mode in "OSZ ChronoLiner"

The peculiarity of the program is that it provides the teacher with the opportunity to create their own content files for the time tape. A number of topics are already offered in a single collection, including those listed in the table.

The resource offers topics not only on history, but also on other subjects. For example, in fig. 17 shows the timeline "Geochronology - geological eras and epochs", which contributes to the formation of students' ideas about the main geological periods in the history of the Earth - from the Archean to the Cenozoic. The material includes a description of the most significant natural phenomena and geological processes for the development of the Earth's biosphere, as well as images of typical representatives of flora and fauna of various periods. This material is studied at the lessons of physical geography.

Rice. 17. Timeline "Geochronology - geological eras and eras"

Online timeline tools

This section will look at resources that allow you to create a timeline on the Web. Such tools provide simple development tools, making it possible to create your own project and make it available either only to the author or to all Internet visitors.

Timeline.thinkport

This service is available as part of the thinkport educational environment, which was conceived as a platform for teachers, students and their parents. One section of the site offers a simple resource for creating timelines. After registration, you get the opportunity to create your timeline directly on the Web. The program allows you to search for icons for the timeline, the created project can be viewed by scaling the timeline within a wide range. The timeline is stored online, but you can return to your project to continue working on it.

The presence of a template simplifies the process of creating a timeline (Fig. 18), but do not flatter yourself - with this program you can create only a very simple project.

Rice. 18. The assistant will guide you through all the steps of creating
timelines on Timeline.thinkport

Mnemograph

Mnemograph is a web application that allows you to organize and manage information based on a timeline. Information can be made available only to the author or to everyone around. You can create both point events tied to a specific date, and extended events (Fig. 19). Added events can be hyperlinked, sending users of the timeline to information on this event already published on the Internet. You can create several parallel timelines, as well as add events not only from the past, but also those that are planned for the future. Mnemograph is both an editor and a viewer. At the time of this writing, the Mnemograph resource was in beta testing.

Rice. 19. Mnemograph resource interface

Simile timeline

For programmers and web designers, the Simile timeline resource will be useful, which describes the technique and provides code that allows you to get an online implementation of the timeline, similar to the one shown in Fig. 20.

Rice. 20. Simile timeline appearance

Ready-made timeline projects

The above products allow you to create fairly simple timelines. If you are planning a complex interactive project, then you will have to use some kind of multimedia product creation tool, a review of which is beyond the scope of this article. Here it is more useful to make a brief overview of the resources where certain timeline projects have already been implemented. After reading them, you can get ideas for presenting the material and find historical data.

Hyperhistory

A magnificent resource in terms of visibility and historical content. Temporary s Its tapes of historical figures (Fig. 21), periods and events (Figs. 22 and 23) plus historical maps and text make it an ideal history textbook.

The project is implemented very ascetically in terms of design and graphic delights, but everything that is needed works.

Rice. 21. People mode displays personalities

Rice. 22. History mode displays periods of time

Rice. 23. Events mode displays events by year

Timeline of major trends and events (1750-2100)

A unique resource in which the analysis of history allows you to make a forecast for the future. With a very modest implementation, the project is striking in its visibility and information content.

The timeline (Fig. 24) contains many scales that display the following factors:

Rice. 24. Timeline of major trends and events (1750-2100)

related to the environment - eg population level and other parameters;
social - the level of crime, social moods (periods of euphoria, anxiety, etc.);
technological - in particular, the time when the most important technologies appeared (Fig. 25);

Rice. 25. Fragment of the time tape, which reflects the periods of origin
and maturity of the most important technologies (including forecast)

economic - periods of recession, depression, market panic;
political - wars and armed conflicts (Fig. 26), riots, rebellions, etc.

Rice. 26. Fragment of the tape of time, where the most significant wars are marked

(The full PDF version of this timeline can be found on our CD.)

bbc timelines

We have shown the British history timeline (Fig. 27) to show what kind of interactivity and beauty Flash provides, on the basis of which this project is implemented. The timeline covers a huge historical material, however, scrolling through it is very fast and convenient. Highlighting texts, impeccable design, but this is where the advantages of the project, perhaps, end. The event mode selected for the resource, in which they are shown by buttons with tooltips, is an unfortunate form of presenting information, since it does not make it possible to trace trends. The lack of icons and symbols that complement the event buttons significantly reduces the information content of the project. As a result, the user receives a high-quality design, an abundance of material, but the visibility of its presentation is minimal.

Rice. 27. British history timeline interface

Collection of Timeline Projects

An excellent site, which contains projects of time tapes from antiquity to the present day. Here you can get a lot of ideas for creating a new project.

The author of the article at one time came up with the idea of creating a timeline with a display of changes in the area of countries over time. Alas, it turned out to be not new, which was discovered when writing this article. The timeline in which this idea is implemented is shown in Fig. 28 and is located at: http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/images/timelines/hammond1_1200x825.jpg . The time scale goes from top to bottom.

Rice. 28. Timeline showing the change in the area of countries
over time

The figure shows that in the period after the First World War, the territory of Germany decreased, increased in the mid-40s, and after 1945 decreased again. On the same tape, the collapse of the British colonial system, the growth of the US area and the division of Austria into two "sleeves" are clearly visible ... The idea was realized perfectly! Alas, the resource exists only as a JPG file from a scanned paper original in a reduced form, and there is no full-fledged online version. Here is an idea that is still waiting to be implemented in one of the full-fledged online projects, for example, based on Flash.

Since the area of the continent is a time-invariant value, it is possible to construct a timeline that displays the change in time of the percentage of areas in a group of neighboring countries. By the way, it is also presented on this site.

Ways of development of the peoples of Russia

Another development that is available for free on the website of the Unified Collection of Digital Educational Resources (Fig. 29). This timeline shows the development of the peoples of Russia from the 9th to the 16th centuries and contains interactive tasks. As can be seen from fig. 30, in the test mode, the student needs to place on the timeline the names of the states that existed on the territory of modern Russia in the Middle Ages.

Rice. 29. Timeline "Ways of development of the peoples of Russia"

Rice. 30. Interactive task on the timeline

findings

There are a lot of tools for creating timelines - from the simplest ones, which basically involve automatic flagging of events on the timeline, to very complex ones, focused on learning and, in addition to the editor, having a fair amount of information content. Moreover, as the analysis shows, the cost of a product depends not only on its quality, but also to a greater extent on who created the product and under what project. Small editors distributed by commercial firms can cost a lot of money, while large-scale projects developed over decades by university teams with multi-megabyte content can be delivered free of charge, for example, the educational project "Unified Collection of Educational Digital Resources". By the way, three of the products discussed in the article are located on this portal, including the two most interesting in terms of education: "Contemporaries" and "OSZ ChronoLiner". Supported by the online educational community and distributed absolutely free of charge and the Timeline Creator project.

Online editors that allow you to create more or less complex timelines, the author of this article did not find on the Web. Apparently, full-fledged Web 2.0 projects, where everyone can indicate their biography and the biographies of all their relatives on the timeline, are still waiting in the wings. The online feed development resources we've been able to test are still in beta and underdeveloped.

An analysis of ready-made timelines available on the Web for viewing shows that this topic is presented in a variety of directions and there are wonderful resources, though mostly in English. At the same time, it should be noted that the visibility of the project does not always correspond to the capabilities of the technological platform on which it is implemented. A successful project is not only an engine and a good design of panels and fonts, but also visibility, interesting ideas and their graphic interpretation. To create a timeline, it is required not only to arrange the names of events along the timeline, but also to choose an icon for each event in such a way that it takes up a minimum of space and is accurately associated with it. There are many implementations of timelines on the Web, but this does not mean that there is nothing left for new developers ... History is a living science: new facts appear, old ones are rethought - so new interesting timelines will continue to appear. We hope that this article will help in the development of new interesting projects.

It is possible to work together on the timeline. Presentation of materials in various forms: a timeline, a presentation book, a list of events, a map with event place markers. It is possible to use materialsfrom popular social services such as YouTube, photo hosting sites Flickr, Picasa and others. Information about the event can be presented in text form, video clip, photo, geographic coordinates on Google maps

Interactive and multimedia service. It is possible to present the event using textual material, music, a Youtube video clip, and mark the place of events using Google maps. Possibility of integration to other sites, the choice of design and functions is determined by the user.

The date must include the day and month. For one year, the tape is not created.

Instructions for use

OS: Windows

Rice. 2. Timeline Maker Professional interface

Rice. 3. Displaying events (periods) as flags

Rice. 4. Displaying events (periods) as bars

SmartDraw

OC: Windows

Rice. 7. SmartDraw program interface

Timeline Creator

OS: Windows, Mac OS 9, X (requires Java and FlashPlayer)

Rice. 8. An example of a timeline obtained on the basis of Timeline Creator

Resource users get the opportunity to share timeline.xml files on the developer's site. This allows you to use and continue the achievements of fellow teachers.

Timeliner XE

OS: Windows (all versions)

Rice. 9. Timeliner XE interface

excel

OS: Windows

Rice. 10. An example of a timeline created
using Excel (non-linear scale)

Rice. 11. An example of a timeline obtained using Excel
(linear scale)

Contemporaries

OS: Windows

Rice. 12. "Timeline" mode in the "Contemporaries" project

The ability to edit and add new elements to the timeline (Fig. 13) allows the teacher to create a timeline as an illustration for a particular lesson.

Rice. 13. The program "Contemporaries" makes it possible to edit
and add new elements

OSZ ChronoLiner

OS: Windows

Rice. 14. Timeline with detailed event cards

Rice. 15. Mode of displaying brief information on events

Rice. 16. "Compact" mode in "OSZ ChronoLiner"

Rice. 17. Timeline "Geochronology - geological eras and eras"

Online timeline tools

Timeline.thinkport

The presence of a template simplifies the process of creating a timeline (Fig. 18), but do not flatter yourself - with this program you can create only a very simple project.