Last week I read a few folks blogging about Timetoast a free online timeline program. I was intrigued by their descriptions so this week I thought I would check it out and build a time line on the History of Life on Earth. This is an assignment I give my biology students each year. They usually make it out of paper and string using 1 mm for 1 million years. It really puts the age of the Earth into perspective for them. And it shows them just how short their existence is on Earth. Sad, I know.I wasn’t planning on changing the student assignment as I think it’s important for students to “physically see” (if that makes any sense) the enormous age of our planet. However students that miss the lab could build a timeline at home using the program.
I did find one problem immediately. The time entries don’t go past 0 years. From 0 to 2010 you’re fine. Try anything past that and you’re in trouble. Want to plot the first prokaryotic fossils 3.5 billion years ago? Good Luck! It looks promising for timelines on evolutionary theories for example. It is easy to use, but wouldn’t work for this particular assignment.
Second I need to apologize for a couple responses I gave to folks about Create-A-Graph. Last week I said I took a look at it and said Excel was far superior. Excel would be better for high level students. But for my Standard Biology Students it is excellent! I built a little graph for a plants class I’m taking and it was 100X more user friendly than Excel. So I take back everything I said about Create-A-Graph :-). Check out my graph. And yes, my wife already told me I forgot the units.
Your wife realized you were a unit dropper? Is she a science teacher too? My students love to tell me when I drop units because I am always reminding them to not drop the units. It is a great graph, but that is weird that you can't have negative x values. Great job. Cyn
ReplyDeleteI have my students use Excel. If you really think that its that much more user-friendly, I'll have to give it a try. And kudos that you've discovered a way to incorporate an old lesson in a new way, great job!
ReplyDeleteI like that you were honest with yourself and ,even though the timetoast program would probably mean a lot less mess in your classroom, you realize that the hands on activity is actually the better lesson. This is a good example of only using technology when it is appropriate.
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