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Language programs offer a number of cultural studies courses, in English, in order to help students meet general education requirements. These courses may be content-focused, but they also equip students with communication, research, and general learning skills. This workshop will examine some of the approaches and apps that I’ve used in online and blended learning situations. We will examine the benefits of moving away from chronological approaches to cultural study by using objects and persons as cultural gateways, and we will consider how the curation of publicly accessible materials allows for more open pedagogy. We will then examine some methods and apps that promote student engagement generally and student communication skills specifically. Workshop participants are encouraged to have a laptop or or smart device with them to explore some of the technology being discussed.

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Hypothes.is lets anyone annotate online content. We'll be using it in class, and you may want to use it for your own research.
Also: if you don't want to have students sign up for accounts, you can use the Via  Proxy.

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Comment on and highlight what interests you.

Annotate articles, websites, videos, documents, apps, and more - without clicking away or posting elsewhere. Hypothesis is easy to use and based on open web standards, so it works across the entire internet.

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Collaborate with anyone, anywhere. Use Hypothesis to annotate anything online with classmates, colleagues, or friends. Create a free personal account, or talk to our sales team about Education solutions. Get [...]

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An app/website that lets
you collect and share content. What you're looking at right now is a collection on Padlet!

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Open textbook publishing

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Pressbooks for Ontario's Postsecondary Educators

Customize or Create

With Pressbooks you can author a new resource, or clone an existing resource and make it your own.

Ready to become a Pressbooks Author?
Create Your Account
Find a Resource

Search Ontario's collection of open textbooks. You may find a textbook ready-to-use with your learners or identify one you would like to adapt and customize for your course.

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Pressbooks for Ontario's Postsecondary Educators With Pressbooks you can author a new resource, or clone an existing resource and make it your own. Ready to become a Pressbooks Author? Create Your Account Search Ontario's collection of open textbooks. You may find a textbook ready-to-use with your learners or identify one you would like to adapt and customize for your course.

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A free tool for creating timelines

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TimelineJS is an open-source tool that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines. Beginners can create a timeline using nothing more than a Google spreadsheet, like the one we used for the Timeline above. Experts can use their JSON skills to create custom installations, while keeping TimelineJS's core functionality.

Knight Lab

Watch this brief video for an overview of how to make a timeline.

Tips & tricks

1. Keep it short. We recommend not having more than 20 slides for a reader to click through.

2. Pick stories that have a strong chronological narrative. It does not work well for stories that need to jump around in the timeline.

3. Write each event as a part of a larger narrative.

4. Include events that build up to major occurrences - not just the major events.

Media sources

TimelineJS can pull in media from a variety of sources. Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Dailymotion, Google Maps, Wikipedia, SoundCloud, Document Cloud and more!

Examples

Make a Timeline

TimelineJS works on any site or blog. Make your own in four easy steps.
Having trouble? Watch our video, or see the help section below.

1. Create your spreadsheet

Build a new Google Spreadsheet using our template. You'll need to copy the template to your own Google Drive account by clicking the "Make a Copy" button.

Drop dates, text and links to media into the appropriate columns. For more about working with our template, see our help docs.

Get the Spreadsheet Template

Don't change the column headers, don't remove any columns, and don't leave any blank rows in your spreadsheet.

2. Publish to the web

Under the File menu, select "Publish to the Web."

In the next window, click the blue "publish" button. When asked, "Are you sure...?" click OK.

Now, copy the URL that appears in the center of the window. You'll use this in the next step.

The following has changed as of 18 July 2017!

Close the 'Publish to the web' window. Copy the URL for your Timeline from the browser's address bar. It should look something like this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xuY4upIooEeszZ_lCmeNx24eSFWe0rHe9ZdqH2xqVNk/edit#gid=0

Disregard the URL that appears in the "publish to the web" window. It used to be used below, but changes to Google mean that you'll get an error if you use it now.

3. Generate your timeline

Copy/paste spreadsheet URL into the box below to generate your timeline. (Make sure you've published the spreadsheet.)

4. Share your timeline

Share Link

Use this to link directly to your timeline.
If you're embedding on Medium.com or other oembed-aware services, just paste this link on a line by itself where you want your timeline to appear.
Embed

Copy this embed code and paste it on your site where you want your timeline to appear (just like a YouTube video).

Preview Open Preview in a new window

Help

Need help? First, please be sure to look at our list of frequently asked questions below. If you're brand new to Timeline JS, you may also want to watch our introductory video.

If you don't find an answer there, try our support forums or use our tech support web form. Please be clear with your question, include a link to your spreadsheet, and if appropriate, a link to a page which shows the issue with which you need help. We can only answer support questions in English. We try to be prompt, but please understand that we do not have a dedicated tech support staff.

Find a bug? If you are confident you have found a bug, please report it as a GitHub issue. Be sure to include detailed instructions on how to reproduce the bug. If you're not sure, please start with the tech support system.

Technical documentation

Go further with Timeline:

Frequently asked questions

There aren't enough options. I want more control over the [font size/color/etc]. Can I change things using CSS?

Because there are so many details to the styling, this is not exactly simple, but, if you have some technical capacity, you can override TimelineJS's CSS rules and have complete control over the look of the timeline. For details, see Using the TimelineJS CSS selectors. You will need to be able to instantiate the Timeline in javascript on your own page. (There is no way to override the CSS using the iframe embed.) Then, either in <style> tags in that page, or in an external stylesheet, you can specify CSS rules changing some or all of TimelineJS's default presentation. The basis of TimelineJS's styles are in these files, which use the Less CSS preprocessor.

The first slide in my timeline isn't the first chronologically. Why did this happen?

When using the Google Spreadsheet to configure your timeline, if you put the word title in the type column, that slide will be put at the front, regardless of the values in the date columns. See the Google Spreadsheet documentation for more information.

How can I format text (add line breaks, bold, italics)?

TimelineJS's text fields (headline, text, caption, and credit) all accept HTML markup. A full tutorial on HTML is outside the scope of this FAQ, but here are a few basics:

Wrap paragraphs in <p></p> tags to create line breaks.

Wrap text in <b></b> tags for bold text and <i></i> for italics

To enter dates before the common era, just use a negative value for the year. Of course, you can also enter month and date if you need them.

Generally, you don't have to think about it -- just enter the dates you want. Timeline can handle dates literally to the beginning of time. For dates more than about 250,000 years ago, only the year is usable. Support for those older dates is still relatively new, so if anything seems off, visit our tech support site.

Privacy is very important to me. How should I use TimelineJS?

If you want complete control over who can see the information in your timeline, you cannot use Google Spreadsheets, and you cannot use our standard iframe embed code. Instead, you must use JSON format for the data and instantiate the timeline directly using javascript. You can then use standard web server security measures to control who has access to your timeline and the data used to create it.

Can I use TimelineJS with Wordpress?

It depends. TimelineJS does not work with Wordpress.com sites. We are researching ways to address this.
If you are able to install plugins to your Wordpress installation, we have a Wordpress plugin for Timeline. It supports embedding Timelines with Wordpress "shortcode", and as of version 3.3.14.0, it also has experimental "oembed" support. That means that you can take a direct URL to a timeline (like you get with the "get link to preview" button) and put it in a post on a line by itself, and it should be embedded. (Make sure you've updated the plugin before you try it.)

Is TimelineJS free for commercial use?

TimelineJS is released under the Mozilla Public License (MPL), version 2.0. That means that TimelineJS is free to "use, reproduce, make available, modify, display, perform, distribute" or otherwise employ. You don't need our permission to publish stories with TimelineJS and you don't need to pay us any fees or arrange any further license beyond the MPL. To read more about what you can do with TimelineJS, read our license page.

Storytelling Tools

We build easy-to-use tools that can help you tell better stories.
View More

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TimelineJS is an open-source tool that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines. Beginners can create a timeline using nothing more than a Google spreadsheet, like the one we used for the Timeline above. Experts can use their JSON skills to create custom installations, while keeping TimelineJS's core functionality.

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An app/website that lets you collect and share content by contextualizing it in essay-like form.

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Wakelet | The All In One Content Platform

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Wakelet allows you to bookmark, organize, collaborate and present on content all in one platform. Harness your content to build remarkable things.

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Actually, this is two pieces of software from the same outfit: using ArcGIS Online (not seen here), you can create a Story Map (linked below) (though you can also use the Story Map without including ArcGIS data).

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Create inspiring, immersive stories by combining text, interactive maps, and other multimedia content. Publish and share your story with your organization or everyone around the world.

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Create inspiring, immersive stories by combining text, interactive maps, and other multimedia content. Publish and share your story with your organization or everyone around the world.

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A quick way to engage students during a lecture or to do a quick survey before/after class. (Another good one is sli.do)

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Interact with your audience using real-time voting. No installations or downloads required - and it's free!

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There are lots of task and project management apps out there. I like this one because it's free and it's German.

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Task Management for Effective Teams | MeisterTask

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Task management for effective teams ✓ MeisterTask is the most intuitive task management tool out there ✓ Sign up, invite your team and start working

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Pinboard: social bookmarking for introverts

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For a few more bucks a year, Pinboard offers an archiving service which saves a copy of everything you bookmark, gives you full-text search, and automatically checks your account for dead links.

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This is an excellent word processor because it's more than just a word processor. It actually helps you organize your thinking and writing.

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#1 Novel & Book Writing Software For Writers

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Discover the #1 novel & book writing software for writers! Streamline your writing process with powerful tools designed to help organize, edit, & bring your story to life.

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Software that helps you keep your research organized.

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Just need to create a quick bibliography?

Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share research.
Download
Available for Mac, Windows, Linux, and iOS

Just need to create a quick bibliography? Try ZoteroBib.

Collect with a click.

Zotero automatically senses research as you browse the web. Need an article from JSTOR or a preprint from arXiv.org? A news story from the New York Times or a book from a library? Zotero has you covered, everywhere.

Organize your way.

Zotero helps you organize your research any way you want. You can sort items into collections and tag them with keywords. Or create saved searches that automatically fill with relevant materials as you work.

Cite in style.

Zotero instantly creates references and bibliographies for any text editor, and directly inside Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs. With support for over 10,000 citation styles, you can format your work to match any style guide or publication.

Stay in sync.

Zotero can optionally synchronize your data across devices, keeping your files, notes, and bibliographic records seamlessly up to date. If you decide to sync, you can also always access your research from any web browser.

Collaborate freely.

Zotero lets you co-write a paper with a colleague, distribute course materials to students, or build a collaborative bibliography. You can share a Zotero library with as many people you like, at no cost.

Rest easy.

Zotero is open source and developed by an independent, nonprofit organization that has no financial interest in your private information. With Zotero, you always stay in control of your own data.

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Zotero | Your personal research assistant

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Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research.

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Just one of many applications that will help you make infographics.

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A really smart way to take notes, pinpoint the most important information in those notes, and review those notes

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Epiphany chez Oiseau

Teaching vs Educating

Shifting the focus

From what I want students to know

To what students need to know

Form vs Content / Process vs Topic

Where do I stand?

I want students to know stuff

But I don't want to stuff it down their throats

Colour coding

green: study tools

blue: communication tools

beige: engagement tools

purple: open media tools

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Open photos of high quality

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Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash

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Beautiful, free images and photos that you can download and use for any project. Better than any royalty free or stock photos.

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Databank of (usually) open images, good for historical subjects

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From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository