Online Timeline Tools

Recently, a teacher asked me about a tool that would allow students to create a timeline. I knew that I had used some in the past but had either forgotten about them or had deleted any documentation of their use that may have been on my computer. So, in order to assist the teacher mentioned above, I had to do a little research. Below are the results of that research. At the bottom of this post is an example of a timeline I created on TimeToast.

Read*Write*Think Timeline From site: Creating timelines with this tool becomes an engaging activity for students as they choose from five different units of measure (date, time, event, entry, or other) and add specific descriptions of each entry. Once the entries have been added, students may navigate through any part of the timeline by simply clicking on the appropriate entry. Students may view and edit their draft timeline, then print the finished timeline for reference. This is a handy tool for classroom use that guides students through the process of organizing information in timeline form and results in a polished finished product.

XTimeline is a collaborative time line creation tool. XTimeline gives users the option to include photos, videos, text, and web links within each entry of the timeline. After creating a timeline the creators can invite people to comment on and discuss the timeline. Think of it as Youtube for timelines. Timelines created with XTimeline can be easily embedded into another website like a blog or a wiki for example.


Time Toast is a simple timeline builder. To add events to a timeline simply click on the inconspicuous "add an event" button and a simple event box pops up in which you can enter enter text, place a link, or add a picture. Time Toast does not have the more advanced editing options that X Timeline offers. What it offers instead is ease of use which makes it a suitable choice for students in elementary school or middle school.

Dipity is my favorite online timeline creation tool. It allows users to include not only text for entries, but also images, and videos in their timeline. Dipity also has a mapping feature which allows users to place a Google Maps bookmark that relates to the topic of the event, on to an entry in their timeline Like most Web2.0 tools, Dipity has multiple ways for users to Each entry to a Dipity timeline can include multiple types of media which allows users to add more detail and information than can be included in a traditional timeline.