| Help Page & Frequently Asked Questions |
We offer email assistance with any aspect of TimeMachine. Your comments will help us improve future updates and upgrades of this portal. Please email your questions to
Here are answers to most of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about TimeMachine:
| Curriculum & Learning | Web Questions | Technical & Installation |
| Curriculum & Learning Questions | Answers: |
| - 1) What is TimeMachine? | - TimeMachine is a portal, that is, a gateway to a storehouse of raw digital content, with browsing and search tools, programs and exercises that can help teachers and students meet the goals of the modern social studies curriculum. |
| - 2) What do these portals contain? | - TimeMachine is based around a large keyworded timeline database, with attached image bases, audiovisual files, electronic text libraries, statistical databases and sets, quotation databases, Web catalogues and Javascript quizzes and exercises, as well as lesson plans, research tips and programming tools that let students make their own quizzes, charts and graphical timelines. |
| - 3) How does TimeMachine differ from an encyclopedia? | - TimeMachine goes beyond the encyclopedia model, giving students far more base content to work with. The material is bias free and largely in point form, so students can't crib, and have to reassemble the material in their own words. |
| - 4) Give me an example. | - OK, let's take the real world example of a class team researching Bell+Alexander+Graham. They can either browse in each section, or simply hit the search button and enter the data.
Look at the richness of the hits generated by TimeMachine at the Sample Page. Next, let's compare this content with what is available on the Web. First, do a search in Encyclopaedia Britannica. Or Encarta. Or The Canadian Encyclopedia. Then do a Google search. - The superior pedagogy and usefulness of the TimeMachine approach should be self-evident. Students simply get a deeper and better learning experience. |
| - 5) What's the purpose of these portals, and how can they help me teach Social Studies? | - TimeMachine is designed to allow researchers to browse, search and extract usable data for book reports, projects, class discussion or making graphical timelines, charts, quizzes or even class Web sites. Teachers can exploit the raw material in developing course content and learning activities, and meeting their own special curriculum needs. |
| - 6) How do students get at the raw content? | - TimeMachine is set up for simple or advanced Boolean searching, so students can do an overall text string search or learn how to filter out material that they do not need. The hits and discoveries can be extracted during the browse by cutting, copying, pasting or saving, or after the search, from the Discoveries Page. |
| - 7) Is the material easy to use, and what are the grade levels? | - The bulk of the timeline resources are in point form, which makes for very low readability levels compared to encyclopedia articles and books. The image bases are easily searchable, and conveniently divided into time periods, and by People, Places, Events, Culture and Symbols, which gives a sense of discovery to the experience of browsing. The Quizzes are easy to use and entertaining, and students can make their own quizzes, charts and timelines. |
| - 8) How do the materials correlate to my provincial or state curriculum? | - We are currently developing lesson plans and research exercises specific to various curriculum levels and for cross curriculum study in social studies, history, and geography. And best of all, we are offering self-grading, staged curriculum quizzes to help students develop skills and knowledge in each of the standard curriculum areas such as aboriginal, settlement and political history and biography. |
| - 9) Can you elaborate on the difference between using these portals and using an encyclopedia? | - First, you'll find far more usable and valuable material in these portals. The online content is far richer. Second, there is not the bias you can find in some encyclopedias. Any bias is toward curriculum utility. Third, because TimeMachine data is essentially raw and plain, students are not tempted to crib and plagiarize. They have to reorder and rework the material, and put it in their own words. |
| - 10) What are the pros and cons of using raw material? | - Raw material has many advantages. First, it is generally bias free. Second, students have to work to extract and reassemble the data. But with practice they are learning valuable curriculum-mandated learning and technology skills. The cons? Students will need guidance in organizing the material, in writing it up, and in using computer software to present it. Because the material is bias free, some students may need help interpreting and judging the material's quality and relevance. |
| Web Related Questions | Answers: |
| - 1) We realize the benefits of the Web, but are concerned about our younger students doing Internet research during school hours. | - TimeMachines content base is so broad and deep that in many cases students can find enough material inside the portals to satisfy their research needs and whet their curiosity. Because the portal is written in HTML and Javascript, students can get an excellent Web research experience in school without going on-line. |
| - 2) Can we use the material off-line? | - Yes, we can make arrangements so that you can serve the base content from non-networked computers equipped with CD-ROM players. |
| - 3) Can students dial up from home or the public library? | - Yes, we can provide UserIDs and passwords for each school, or we can set up your account so that students doing homework can use their own school board or district entry passwords. |
| - 4) If we decide to allow students to do Web research under school supervision, can they link to the Web from TimeMachine? | - Yes, links to major Web resource sites are part of the underlying database, and you can do automatic Web searches from your browsing session, or from the Discovery Page, using any of a number of popular search engines such as Google, AltaVista, Sympatico or Yahoo. You also have the option of using Northern Blue's Waterloo browser, that only allows linking to TimeMachine |
