I've been wanting to do a timeline-type activity for the Civil War, but wasn't impressed with any timeline software out there. We've used Timeglider in the past, which is pretty good (and free!), but I didn't really like the appearance of it. I then thought, "Wait, why couldn't we use Google Tour Builder to make a timeline?!" It would be perfect: each battle/event would be a new "location", and with Tour Builder you can input start dates, end dates, information, location, pictures, and oodles of details. This would be perfect! Plus, the students already know how to use it since we used it earlier this year. So I decided we'd go this route with our timeline.
Students were given several specific events/battles that they'd need on their timeline, along with what information each of their "locations" would need.
The students set out to create a timeline using Google Tour Builder. The results were awesome--and definitely a much better looking (and interactive and very visual, with the map serving as the background) timeline than anything else I think I could have had them done.
Check out a few of the students' timelines below. Once again, I'm super impressed with what they created and came up with!
