A Look at the past

 Hi everyone!

In this post I will show you how I have put into practice the website Timetoast in an English lesson for 2nd Compulsory Secondary Education level. 

The aim of the task was to Create a Timeline about the developmen of society in terms of education, jobs and technology throughout the history.

On that purpose, along the unit we had been working on Past Simple and There was/There were, and we had seen vocabulary and readings related to work, school and homes now and in the past. 

That is why they had to choose a decade in between the 1920s and the 2000s and, in groups of 3/4, they had to research on the characteristics related to the aspect above mentioned. First, searched for ideas on the internet, and they the down in a DRAFT. Afterwards, they had to use the information to create a CANVA. And finally, when every CANVA was created, I shared the timeline with them, and they uploaded their Canva in the given period of time within the timeline. 

ADVANTAGES OF USING TIMETOAST

• Students develop their digital competence
• Students develop their thinking skils
• Students work cooperatively
• Students learn to create mind maps 

STUDENTS REACTIONS

Students loved seen how their work could be seen as part of a whole project. And, once the timeline was created, they could analyse how the society had changed. They realised about the difference between schools now and in the past, the women position now and in the past, the number of people in a family, how families used to live in the past, etc. In that way, we enhanced the developement of their thinking skills. 

FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS

I think, for next tasks, I would ask students to create the timeline by themselves, so each group would have to create one. 

ISSUES

One of the issues that I faced during the process is that I had not provided students with links or resources where they could find the information, so that, at some point, they were using the first piece of information they would find, which sometimes was fake or incorrect. 

Furthermore, I had not realise that Timetoast does not allow you to upload pdfs, so after asking them to submit the canva in pdf format, we had to change it to jpg format. 

OPINION

As I have said before, Timetoast is a really good tool that helps students think in a wider range, as it invites them to compare and see the development of things. It helps them develop their digital and entrepreneurship competences.