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October 15, 2001
Quick Picks
TimeLiner 5.0
Emphasis: Multidisciplinary tool
Grade level: K-12. Platform: Mac/Win CD
Price: $79.95; network and site licenses available
Publisher: Tom Snyder Productions; Watertown, MA; (617) 926-6222
TimeLiner 5.0 is a flexible presentation tool designed for use across the curriculum. With this program, students can create visual representations of significant events, chronologies, and even measurements, from personal biographies to the history of the ancient world to bar graphs showing distances between prehistoric sites. All they have to do is choose a font style, size, and color, then enter the date and event while the program organizes data into chronological order. What's more, with version 5.0, kids can now illustrate their creations with an image library containing more than 400 resizeable historical photos and clip art. Additional video, sound, and Web links can also be added to any event.
Five views allow a range of vantage points for seeing, creating, and printing work, such as the banner view, where kids can make time lines up to 100 pages long to wrap around their classroom or decorate school halls. Multimedia users will appreciate the new slide show feature for showing off their presentations. Additionally, sophisticated editing features let students make quick changes to events and dates, merge multiple time lines easily, and distinguish events by theme.
Teachers will welcome the extensive Teacher's Guide; sample movies, sounds, and time lines; as well as a bilingual feature that lets students toggle between English and Spanish. Ready-made time lines on themes such as "Dinosaurs and Other Big Stuff" and "World History" can be purchased separately.
Evaluator: Jamie Keller, journalist and experienced classroom and movie-set teacher.
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