Google Timeline

I have been wanting to find a really good reason to use Google Timelines in my lessons for quite some time now, but rarely do I get the opportunity to take a chronological review of a topic or query. English does not seem to throw up that many opportunities but then, like buses…..

The 10b to Idiolect

The first opportunity was to support a Year 10 Controlled Assessment task on idiolect and sociolect, more specifically researching adult opinions of youth culture, one focus, on how texting was impacting on young peoples English skills and language. The timeline highlighted not only numerous articles but also just how long this topic has been the focus for discussion.

The 7a to Hillsborough

The second opportunity came from a Year 7 Scheme of Work on Narrative Poetry. After an exciting drama experience I told the students that ‘we’ still had a lot to uncover and that we would be collaboratively building a wiki resource on the Hillsborough Disaster on the VLE next week. Rather than start from scratch I create two timelines one of the week of April 15, 1989 and the other 10 years on. There are just plenty of articles with more information in them than the students could process in an hour. What it means is, that within 2 minutes of the research starting, the learning has started. I have in fact, filtered 21 years of the news into 2, 1 week blocks.

Its possible that I just didn’t really see the potential in the tool.

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