Thursday, August 30, 2012

Google Docs as an online timeline creator

Just found a cool addition to the reasons why Google Apps is useful in schools - or anywhere for that matter. The timeline below is generated via a Google spreadsheet using a very simple format provided by TimeLineJS by Verité.




The spreadsheet is simply populated with URLs to any of the content you want to use - I used Flickr and YouTube for the above. You can add titles and comments in columns in the spreadsheet.
Once complete, simply publish your Google spreadsheet as a web page, copy the URL generated and paste it into the "embed generator" on the TimeLineJS page. It generates your embed code for the finished timeline which you then post on your website/blog etc. Any changes you subsequently make to your Google spreadsheet will automatically show up.

You'll find the Google Docs template half way down their page - look for this image


It's very cool and pretty darn easy to use.

There are of course plenty of other tools that do a similar job - ie they create an web based timeline.
xTimeLine is one I have used.
Another relative newcomer is MeoGraph - but I have had some trouble getting audio to work with it - not sure if it is me, the browser or our firewall getting in the way here - so  more investigation required.
Others that seem to be useful (and free), but I haven't used ...
TimeToast
TimeGlider
TikiToki also looks interesting, but the free version doesn't allow you to embed by the look of it.