Utilizing Timeline JS

Blog Post #2

Timeline JS is a great tool to create timelines on a variety of subjects. I created mine on the United States Military occupation of the Philippines. This event occurred over the course of a few years, so I found that it was an appropriate software to use.

There are a few downsides to using this software, or things that could be improved on. It is limited in terms of creativity, unless you override it, but not everyone has the ability to do that. It also would not make a great software to use if the event you are dealing with happens all in one day. It is best for events that take place over multiple days, years, etc.

The media that I used for this timeline were mainly photos, I found a photo of a document that I thought would add to the timeline. It was difficult to link some photos, as photos have to already exist in an online space.

The audience that I had in mind for this project was an audience that is not too familiar with the history of the United States occupation of the Philippines. Maybe for a public space, something that an audience can read quickly and understand.

In 2010, a survey sponsored by the American Historical Association
found three-fourths of historians to be “power users” or “active users” of new technology; of them, nearly 100 percent reported using library-supported databases
(JSTOR and kin), more than 95 percent used online search engines in their research,
and more than 90 percent used primary sources accessed online

PUTNAM, LARA. “The Transnational and the Text-Searchable: Digitized Sources and the Shadows They Cast.” The American Historical Review 121, no. 2 (2016): 377–402. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/121.2.377.

This quote from Lara Putnam’s article on digital sources and the shadow in which they cast is intriguing. When I was doing my research for this timeline, all I had to do was search for “U.S Military Occupation in the Philippines” and the results were a variety of articles and sources. I also looked through some of my sources in my University’s library, which is where I normally go to for sources. It is interesting that as technology advances, more historians are using sources accessible on the internet than in person. This survey was taken over ten years ago, so I am sure the percentage is higher now.

Overall, Timeline JS is a great tool to use in the teaching of history, which gives more of a visual, even though there are aspects of the software that could be improved.