TIMETOAST

 TIMETOAST

   1. TIMELINES

8th March: International Women's Day

Source: https://www.ducksters.com/biography/women_leaders/

ELLEN OCHOA

ROSA PARKS 

INDIRA GANDHI 

 

   2. REFLECTION

Since March 8th, International Women's Day, is coming up I asked my students to create timelines

for different women that made a difference in history.

Learning objectives of the activity 

• Comprehension:

• Identify and comprehend details such as dates, names, events...

• Vocabulary

•  Learn and reinforce new vocabulary related to historical events.

• Utilize contextual clues to deduce the meanings of unfamiliar words.

• Historical Understanding:

• To facilitate participants' understanding of historical events by researching and adding

key milestones to their timelines.

• Collaborative Skills:

• Encourage collaboration by having participants work in teams to create a comprehensive

timeline, fostering teamwork and communication.

• Data Organization:

• Develop skills in organizing and presenting information in a chronological order,

developing the ability to structure data effectively.

• Critical Thinking:

• Encourage participants to critically evaluate and select the most relevant events to

include in their timelines, to summarize and synthesize.

• Research Skills:

• Improve research skills by requiring participants to find  historical events and extract

relevant information for inclusion in their timelines.

• Visual Communication:

• Enhance participants' ability to convey information visually through the use of images,

icons, and other visual elements on Timetoast.

The advantages of using TimeToast for this activity 

    The main advantage was that they couldn’t just copy off the Internet, which is what they usually do when

asked to write about some famous people/biographies. They had to actually read, summarize, scan for

information and present all the data in a different format. 

    The fact that the final product was a timeline made them “forget” that it was a reading activity.

Also, Timetoast offered a more dynamic and enriched learning experience compared to traditional

reading and summarizing by incorporating visual elements, interactivity, and customization, and  by

allowing cooperative work.

The steps you followed to set up the activity 

1. Introduction to International Women’s Day (Google presentation by teacher).

2. I made groups of 3 and told students to go to: https://www.ducksters.com/biography/women_leaders/

3. They had a quick look at it and  chose what women they wanted to talk about.

4. I explained Timetoast to students and told them they had to make a timeline of the women they had

chosen. They had to extract the information from the page above. They could also check other sources

but I thought that page would fit their level and the information wasn’t too extensive. Besides, it offers

an audio segment. I told them to get organized and divide the work.

5. Later on, I haven’t done it yet), they will have to give some kind of presentation of their timeline to

the rest of the class.

Any problems and how you and the students solved them 

    The main problem for the students was to select what information to include in the timeline and what

information to leave out. My guidance was necessary to help them with the “selection.”

    Another problem was that some of them tried to cheat either by looking up  timelines that were already

online (since they chose really famous women and there were some available online) and others tried

to use online translators to translate the texts into Spanish. I

In addition, the texts that appear in the different milestones are partially copied from the page and not

really summarized.

I told my students that the rubric I use to grade this assignment would take this “copying” into account

and lower their grade some. Hopefully, they won't do this next time.

The students’ reaction – how did they feel about using TimeToast to complete the task? 

There were different opinions: some thought it was interesting and enjoyed the result of their work and

others didn’t seem very excited about it. However, They all did a decent job and  they all read the texts

because they needed that information to make their timeline.

Some things that you would change / improve next time 

1. Instead of telling them to make  a timeline of the whole life of a person  without more guidelines

(I think it was too much information to summarize,), I would give them some specific milestones they

must include.

2. I would give them more specific instructions about how long the timeline should be (number of

milestones, pictures, text…) so that the timelines are more homogeneous.

3. To avoid copying chunks of text, I would use photocopies instead of going to a website. That way

it’s not so easy to copy and paste. Instead of copying whole chunks, they may really summarize the

text themselves.

At least 3 ways that the use of TimeToast helped you achieve your learning objectives 

They all read the texts because they needed the information to create “something,” so they practiced their

reading skills in a more “practical” way, with a purpose in mind.

They read in groups helping each other to understand and summarize the text: collaborative work.

Some of them got “tricked” into reading by asking them to create a timeline and not asking them

directly to read.