I knew that the iLabs timeline tool was useful for the Learning Technologies Timeline where I wanted both the format of a timeline and collaborative construction of it. Rajeev has taken that to a new level with his timelines for Dewey, Addams, and Chicago.

It wasn’t much to go from there to see the timeline tool as a way to present <strong>a roadmap for a project</strong> or to make an agenda for a meeting. And recently I realized that it’s also a way to make a syllabus for those who think the existing syllabus tool is too complex or offers too many options.

I didn’t see initially that it was also a blog if I simply sort by newest first. It’s also a lab notebook with spaces for regular notes, links to data, automatic dating, Dave and Rajeev helped me see that it’s a roster for a project or a class, especially helpful if it includes photos. Now, I’m seeing that it’s a bulletin board. Each instantiation of a timeline can be a separate forum, and individual postings are entries in that forum, which can then be sorted by dates or titles of the postings. Of course it doesn’t thread messages…

To what extent do each of the iLabs tools have this multiple use character?