Timelines, which let you see the time. Specialized computer program "time tape"

It is possible to collaborate on a timeline. Presentation of materials in various forms: timeline, presentation book, list of events, map with event place marks. 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, video, photo, geographic coordinates on Google maps

Interactive and multimedia service. It is possible to present an event using text material, music, a video clip from Youtube, and indicate the location of events using Google maps. The possibility of integration into other sites, the choice of design and functions is determined by the user.

The date must indicate the day and month. After one year, the tape is not created.

Instructions for use

OS: Windows

The program comes in two editions: Timeline Maker Professional ($195) and a lightweight Timeline Maker Student ($49.95), with a free trial version also available. The application allows you to automatically build a timeline and customize it according to individual wishes. The user needs to enter the raw data into a table similar to Microsoft Excel tables (Figure 2) or import it 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 presentation of events (Fig. 3 and 4).

Rice. 2. Interface of the Timeline Maker Professional program

Rice. 3. Displaying events (periods) as flags

Rice. 4. Displaying events (periods) in the form of bars

SmartDraw

OC: Windows

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

Rice. 7. SmartDraw program interface

Timeline Creator

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

Timeline Creator is a free tool that helps teachers and students who are not familiar with multimedia development tools 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 timelines simultaneously, which makes it possible to compare events. Events are provided with a text commentary and can have multimedia accompaniment in the form of photos, audio or video.

Rice. 8. Example of a timeline obtained using Timeline Creator

Users of the resource have the opportunity to exchange timeline.xml files on the developer’s website. This allows you to use and continue the work of fellow teachers.

Timeliner XE

OS: Windows (all versions)

Timeliner XE (Fig. 9) is a very advanced product ($99) that offers tools for creating timelines and concept maps, that is, it allows you to display objects that are related not only chronologically, but also according to the cause-and-effect principle. Therefore, using the program, in addition to linear chronological feeds, you can create chains of objects or even closed cycles made up of objects.

Rice. 9. Timeliner XE program interface

A quick start when creating a project thanks to templates makes this product in demand among users who do not have access to complex multimedia creation tools. The built-in web browser for searching information on the Internet allows you to find the necessary 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 advanced that with the right skill it can be adapted for this purpose. On the Microsoft website you can find a number of articles on creating timelines using Excel. For example, at http://www.microsoft.com/education/createtimeline.mspx there is a step-by-step description of creating a timeline approximately like the one shown in Fig. 10.

Rice. 10. 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 timeline 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 methodology can simply download the Timeline Template, which is located on the same web page.

Rice. 11. 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 timeline). O th scale), and an editor (you can add figures and events to the feed), and a set of games for orientation in history (Fig. 12).

Rice. 12. “Timeline” mode in the “Contemporaries” project

The program was developed within the framework 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 artistic culture and literature. The organizing core of the program is the concept of time. Two modes - “Russia” and “World” - allow us to work on synchronizing historical processes and overcome the disconnection between courses in world and domestic history.

The project is distinguished by a large amount of historical information, the ability to select and combine viewing modes, and the 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 students' motivation to study subjects and their interest in disciplines. Students can establish various vertical and horizontal relationships along the lines of “person - event of the era”, “figure of national history - figure of world history”, “ancestor - descendant”.

Analysis of the events selected to characterize any historical era and their schematic images can become the basis for a discussion about the “image of the era”, the creation of creative works by students by selecting, drawing from existing samples and justifying the choice of events that characterize a given time.

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

Rice. 13. The Contemporaries program allows you to edit
and add new elements

NEO ChronoLiner

OS:Windows

The program was created within the framework 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 collected information.

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

The program provides printing of 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. You can print both single time lines and various combinations of them, synchronized by time. O th scale. And with the help of 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 select time lines 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 the mouse over it (Fig. 16).

Rice. 14. Timeline showing detailed event cards

Rice. 15. Mode for 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 timeline content files. 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. Figure 17 shows the timeline “Geochronology - geological eras and epochs,” which helps students develop an idea of 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 in physical geography lessons.

Rice. 17. Timeline “Geochronology - geological eras and epochs”

Online timeline tools

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

Timeline.thinkport

This service is available within the thinkport educational environment, which was conceived as a platform for teachers, students and their parents. One of the sections of the site offers a simple resource for creating timelines. After registration, you get the opportunity to create your own timeline directly on the Internet. 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 delude yourself - with the help of this program you can create only a very simple project.

Rice. 18. The assistant will guide you through all stages of creation
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 ones (Fig. 19). Added events can be hyperlinked, directing timeline users to information on that event that has already been published on the Internet. You can create several parallel timelines, and also add events not only from the past, but also those planned for the future. Mnemograph is both an editor and a viewer.

Rice. 19. Mnemograph resource interface

Simile timeline

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

Rice. 20. Appearance of the Simile timeline

Ready-made timeline projects

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

Hyperhistory

An excellent resource for clarity and historical content. Temporary s Its tapes of historical figures (Figure 21), periods and events (Figures 22 and 23) plus historical maps and text make it an ideal history textbook.

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

Rice. 21. “People” mode displays personalities

Rice. 22. History mode displays time periods

Rice. 23. “Events” mode displays events by year

bbc timelines

We have provided a timeline on British history (Fig. 27) to show what interactivity and beauty is provided by Flash, on the basis of which this project is implemented. The timeline covers a huge amount of historical material, yet scrolling through it is very fast and convenient. Illuminated texts, impeccable design, but this is where the advantages of the project, perhaps, end. For the resource, the event mode is selected, in which they are shown with buttons with tooltips - this is an unsuccessful form of presenting information, since it does not make it possible to trace trends. The lack of icons and symbols that complement 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 clarity of its presentation is minimal.

Rice. 27. British history timeline interface

At the moment, we have created a unique database: we have included facsimile page-by-page images of 3,000 books from the 19th – 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 republished for almost 100 years - people simply do not know about them.

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

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

Continuity of history

We wanted not just to place various events from Russian history on a 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 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 structured correctly. On the Timeline, historical events are located in parallel. This allows you to compare and contrast 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.

screenshot of the project website

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 gaps.

About time coverage

The start and end dates of the first timeline were chosen as key for Russian history: 1462 - the year of the beginning of the reign of Ivan III, during which a unified 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 provided with annotations compiled by Runiverse scientific consultants.

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

About difficulties

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

The main difficulty when working on timelines is to select from a variety of facts those that will most accurately reflect characteristic historical processes. For a timeline for Medieval Rus', it was very difficult to linearly display the succession of great princes from various principalities.

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

screenshot of the project website

We have plans 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 that interest him. There is an idea to adapt the Timeline for schools so that they can be watched on interactive whiteboards.

SPECIALIZED COMPUTER PROGRAM "TIME TAPE"

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

The starting point for constructing a holistic, meaningful map The world around us is the life experience of the child himself. This program will help identify those children whose life experiencesin the field of seasonal phenomena is not yet sufficiently understood. 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 signs, and begin to form ideas about possible options for the picture of the world that fit within the time boundaries of the season.

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

Block 1. What happens when?

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

When teaching children the ability to correlate images of reality with fragments of the year, the authors recommend working consistently 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 at which the student confidently and independently copes with the task.

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

Stage 1. Classify

The child is invited to look at the photographs at a pace convenient for him and determine what time of year they depict. Photos are displayed sequentially in the center of the screen. Below them is an area depicting the passage of time and the transitions from season to season. The “time tape” moves only in one direction - “from the present to the future”, taking twelve “steps” (12 months, “all year round”). The child scrolls through 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 year, then he has the opportunity to select the answer option “I don’t know” (“I’m not sure”) and thereby postpone making a decision by clicking on the on-screen “?” button. After this, the subject is remembered as “unidentified” (it will appear again at the second stage of work) and the photograph changes.

Stage 2. Discuss

After the child has classified all ten presented photographs in the selected series, you can press the key Enter and proceed to the next stage - the “Discuss” screen. It shows the result of the previous individual classification. At the request of the teacher, the child sequentially “calls out” photographs related to a particular season. It is suggested to look at the photographs one by one and discuss why the child attributed them to this particular season. Each student here is required to justify their choice, relying as much as possible on their life experience. It is worth starting to look at photographs from winter paintings, because... These images, as a rule, are well distinguished by children and this beginning helps the child gain confidence in his abilities.

If, in the process of re-examining the photograph and arguing, the child notices his mistakes made when performing the classification, he can transfer the scenes from one season to another. In this case, special marks appear on the moved photographs, the color of which corresponds to the time of year that was initially chosen incorrectly. Marking allows the teacher to see which seasons the child is still confusing. Subjects unidentified at the first stage of work also appear here with a marking - a question mark. He will tell the teacher which seasons cause the child difficulty in differentiation.

Stage 3. Let's look

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

If a child has a desire to perform the entire cycle of exercises again in order to change anything in his panorama of the year, he should be supported. Comparing the results of the first and second experiments will help to establish the level achieved by the child and his zone of proximal development.

So for each series of exercises in this block.

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

With the help of the exercises in 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 during each season, about possible options for the picture of the world within one season. Performing these exercises, in our opinion, will help to avoid the child from developing stereotypical ideas about the seasons, which include only their typical signs. For this purpose, in each series of this block (Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn) photographs are used that present options for pictures of nature throughout one season:

frequently occurring, typical (for example, snowy and frosty winter);

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

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

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

At the first stage, the child’s task 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 photo frame, to the right of it is a scrolling arrow, below is a “timeline” and the “Yes”, “No” and “?” keys. The first photo in the frame appears after clicking on the arrow. The selection of a photo for the season indicated in the menu is carried out using the on-screen buttons “Yes”, “No” and “?”. Each choice must be confirmed by pressing a key Enter , after which the next photo appears in the frame.

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

During the work, the child may ask you to help him determine whether the depicted picture of nature belongs to the season that is specified on the “time tape.” There is no need to rush to suggest the answer. For now, something else is required of the teacher: to encourage in every possible way attempts at independent choice, approving every step taken. With such an organization of activities, the teacher will be able to assess how rich the child’s experience is, how free he is from stereotypes, to what extent he is “open” to the perception of possible, including unexpected options for seasonal pictures of nature, and how ready he is to master the signs of the off-season.

Once the set of photos is exhausted, the frame in the center of the screen will again become empty. This is a signal to move to the next stage of work - to the “Discuss” screen, where the result of each child’s work is presented.

Those. photographs that the child could not confidently correlate with a given time of year are located under a question mark and are the subject of group discussion under the guidance of the teacher. Any plot can be enlarged by first clicking on it and then on the “Magnifying Glass” on-screen button. The selected photo will appear accompanied by the question: “Is this... (winter, spring, summer, autumn)?”, and below it will be the “Yes” and “No” buttons. If the child clicks on the “Yes” button, the photo appears on the “timeline”, complementing the picture of the season. After clicking 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 photographs the signs that he relied on when classifying the scenes, as well as 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, and teaches them to use as confirmation a story about what they have read or heard, if this is available to the child. The discussion can be organized in a “child - adult” pair, or in a “child - adult - other children” group. If during the discussion the partners were unable to influence the child’s choice (even if it was wrong!), it is better to leave the photo in its original place. The point of such discussions is that together and “out loud” children learn to do what they will then do independently and “to themselves.”

As in the first block of exercises, in the final screen “Looking” the child returns to the model of the year - the “time tape”, on which a panorama of the selected season will now be presented, including a variety of pictures, both typical and rare. By clicking the mouse on a special button located under the photo, the child can view the changing pictures of nature throughout the season. If in the “Discussing” screen panoramas of the season were discussed, which were ultimately 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 children's understanding, 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. Firstly, it is an opportunity to complement 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 would 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 problem or systematically expand the child’s understanding of all seasons. But even if the images in the photographs fully correspond to 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 of a particular group or class. Parents can help in selecting subjects by finding suitable photographs in family archives.

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

Timeline is perfect for organizing the educational process in a variety of school subjects. The most striking example is the use of time tapes in history lessons. Thanks to a clear presentation in the form of time periods and 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 chronology in the content of the material being studied. So, in literature lessons, in the form of a timeline, you can present the life path of the writers and poets being studied, in geography lessons - the chronology of the development of mineral resources or geographical discoveries, in biology lessons - the phases of the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly, etc.

You can include in the timeline and events of your family, your genealogy or the pedigrees of your students, as well as some topics from the history of art, music, science, transport, adding variety to the organization of educational work in the classroom.

The timeline will become an indispensable assistant in teaching children of any age, both primary school and older, by facilitating the perception and memorization of time chains. Try it timeline in action - and you will quickly appreciate the capabilities 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 the possibility of collaboration. In the free version, the storage limit for the created timeline is 50 MB, the number of events on the timeline is no more than 100, and 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 to teachers and students. There are no ads in a paid account; members can only see what teachers and students of a particular school have created.

Those who did not happen to study at school during the period of widespread computerization may well have drawn timelines on paper. The author of this article was a participant in similar experiments: several squared sheets from a notebook were glued together for 2 kopecks to form a ribbon. A horizontal timeline was drawn below 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 written and its date was affixed, or even an icon symbolizing the event was drawn. I must say that this activity was not only interesting, but also very useful. Its disadvantages were the need to erase some drawings in order to place others, and the redoing of individual fragments several times.

Those who had access to computers at school may have completed similar tasks in one or another graphics editor. On a computer it is easy to set scrolling along time O th scale. Temporary A The scale can be linear, and extended events can be compared 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 centuries past. The scale can also be scaled, as shown in Fig. 1.

Rice. 1. Scalable scale diagram

As the red line moves, the number of years displayed changes according to a hyperbolic law, that is, instead of scrolling, a change in time is available O 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 time s x historical processes, and to a lesser extent - tools for automating the linking of business tasks to time O th scale. This topic can be classified as timelines, but has other accents and therefore deserves a separate discussion.

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

Offline timeline tools

Timeline Maker Professional

OS: Windows

Rice. 2. Interface of the Timeline Maker Professional program

Rice. 3. Displaying events (periods) as flags

Rice. 4. Displaying events (periods) in the form of bars

Bee Docs'Timeline

ABOUTC: Mac OS

This program is the only one 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), but 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, you can view historical events, which can be arranged in several layers. The user can edit events by double clicking the mouse. Events on the timeline can be linked by hypertext links to local files on the user's computer or to resources on the Internet.

SmartDraw

OC: Windows

Rice. 7. SmartDraw program interface

Timeline Creator

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

Rice. 8. Example of a timeline obtained using Timeline Creator

Users of the resource have the opportunity to exchange timeline.xml files on the developer’s website. This allows you to use and continue the work of fellow teachers.

Timeliner XE

OS: Windows (all versions)

Rice. 9. Timeliner XE program interface

Excel

OS: Windows

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

Rice. 11. 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 on the timeline (Fig. 13) allows the teacher to create a timeline as an illustration for a particular lesson.

Rice. 13. The Contemporaries program allows you to edit
and add new elements

NEO ChronoLiner

OS:Windows

Rice. 14. Timeline showing detailed event cards

Rice. 15. Mode for displaying brief information on events

Rice. 16. “Compact” mode in “OSZ ChronoLiner”

Rice. 17. Timeline “Geochronology - geological eras and epochs”

Online timeline tools

Timeline.thinkport

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

Rice. 18. The assistant will guide you through all stages of creation
timelines on Timeline.thinkport

Mnemograph

Rice. 19. Mnemograph resource interface

Simile timeline

Rice. 20. Appearance of the Simile timeline

Ready-made timeline projects

Hyperhistory

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

Rice. 21. “People” mode displays personalities

Rice. 22. History mode displays time periods

Rice. 23. “Events” mode displays events by year

Timeline of major trends and events (1750-2100)

A unique resource in which historical analysis allows you to make a forecast for the future. With a very modest implementation, the project amazes with its clarity and information content.

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

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

environmental - such as population levels and other parameters;
social - crime rate, social moods (periods of euphoria, anxiety, etc.);
technological - in particular the time of appearance of the most important technologies (Fig. 25);

Rice. 25. Fragment of a time tape showing the periods of origin
and maturity of the most important technologies (including forecast)

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

Rice. 26. Fragment of the timeline, where the most significant wars are noted

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

bbc timelines

Rice. 27. British history timeline interface

Collection of timeline projects

A magnificent site where projects of time tapes from antiquity to the present day are collected. Here you can get a lot of ideas for creating a new project.

The author of the article once came up with the idea of creating a timeline showing changes in the area of countries over time. Alas, it turned out to be not new, which was discovered while 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 changes in the area of countries
over time

The figure shows that in the period after the First World War, the territory of Germany decreased, in the mid-40s it increased, and after 1945 it decreased again. The same tape clearly shows the collapse of the colonial system of Great Britain, the growth of the US area and the division of Austria into two “sleeves”... The idea was implemented perfectly! Alas, the resource exists only as a JPG file from a scanned paper original in a reduced form, and there is no full 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 a continent is a time-invariant quantity, it is possible to construct a timeline that displays changes over time in 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 displays the development paths of the peoples of Russia from the 9th to the 16th centuries and contains interactive tasks. As can be seen from Fig. 30, in test mode the student needs to place on the time tape the names of the states that existed on the territory of modern Russia in the Middle Ages.

Rice. 29. Timeline “Paths of development of the peoples of Russia”

Rice. 30. Interactive task on the timeline

conclusions

There are a lot of tools for creating timelines - from the simplest, which basically involve automatically placing flags with events on the timeline, to very complex ones, oriented towards 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 and within what project the product was created. Small editors distributed by commercial companies can cost a lot of money, but large-scale projects developed over decades by university teams with multi-megabyte content are supplied free of charge, for example, the educational project “Unified Collection of Educational Digital Resources.” By the way, of the products discussed in the article, three are located on this portal, including two of the most interesting in educational terms: “Contemporaries” and “OSZ ChronoLiner”. The Timeline Creator project is also supported by the online educational community and distributed absolutely free of charge.

The author of this article did not find any online editors that allow you to create more or less complex timelines. 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 resources for developing online feeds that we were able to test are still in beta testing and poorly developed.

An analysis of ready-made timelines available for viewing on the Internet shows that this topic is presented in a variety of directions and there are wonderful resources, although mostly in English. It should be noted that the visibility of a project does not always correspond to the capabilities of the technology platform on which it is implemented. A successful project is not only an engine and good design of panels and fonts, but also clarity, interesting ideas and their graphic interpretation. To create a timeline, you need to not only place the names of events along the timeline, but also select an icon for each event so that it takes up a minimum of space and is accurately associated with it. There are many implementations of timelines on the Internet, 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.