Running The Timeline: the Evidence Table
Each table is handed fragments of evidence about one episode, spread across their phones so that nobody holds it all. They build one timeline, tagging each item as an Event (something that happened) or an Account (something said about it, placed by when it was said), mark what they had to guess, and answer one question in a sentence. Then the projector puts every table’s timeline side by side, and you reveal the record. The game is built so that students experience a sequence of events as an argument built from evidence, not a given.
What you need
- A computer with a projector, set to Extend rather than Duplicate (on Windows, press Windows + P).
- Students’ phones on Wi-Fi or mobile data. The phones need nothing installed: they open a web page. A student without a phone sits with a neighbour and shares theirs.
- At least 2 people at every table. Tables of 3 to 6 work best. When students choose their tables there can be up to twelve (A to L).
- About 15 to 20 minutes: two to join, eight to build, three to compare, five for the record and the debrief.
The order of play
| Join | Students scan the code on the projector and choose their table’s letter. Anyone who would rather not hold evidence can ask, privately, to be the Archivist. |
|---|---|
| Deal the roles | At tables of four or more, one person becomes the Archivist (a private request first, otherwise at random). Everyone else keeps evidence. You can change roles on the tutor screen before the evidence goes out. |
| Hand out the evidence | Every table gets the whole set of items, dealt round its keepers. The building timer starts. Each phone has a Now line telling the student what to do next. |
| Build | Each phone has four tabs: Hand (your own items), Table (shared items waiting to be placed), Timeline and Send. Students read items out and put them on the table, place each from the Table as an Event or an Account, put the timeline in order, spend research tokens to bring dates into focus, set aside anything they don’t trust (with a reason), write at least one assumption and the closing sentence, then send it. The tutor screen shows each table’s progress, and you can look at any table’s timeline as it grows. |
| Close and compare | When the timer runs out the screens say so, but nothing closes until you press the button. Press it twice if any table hasn’t sent its timeline: its timeline is closed as it stands, and the records say so. The projector shows every table’s timeline side by side, with items that tables tagged differently picked out in gold. |
| Reveal the record | Each item’s full date and source appears on every phone, beside the table’s own placement, and the projector draws the record to scale by real date, Events above the line and Accounts below, so the gap between the events and the story told about them is plain to see. Each table sees how many items it tagged differently and how many pairs are out of date order. These are for discussion, not a score. |
| Finish | The phones show what to screenshot for the Atlas. Download the table records from the tutor screen before the room expires. |
Research: dates come into focus
Every card carries its real date, but it starts blurred: students see only the century. Each table has a few research tokens. Spending one checks the whole timeline as it stands: an item in the right date order with one neighbour shows its decade; with both neighbours, its year; with both neighbours and the right Event or Account tag, its full date.
What research finds holds only while an item keeps the same neighbours. Move an item and it blurs again, and so do the items either side of it, and the phone says how many dates the move blurred. One decision ripples through the whole timeline: a playable version of “history as butterfly”. When the tokens run out, whatever is still blurred is assumed, and the Send tab lists those items and asks the table what it assumed about them.
What the phones enforce, and what they leave to people
Enforced: only the holder can put an item on the table, so the table has to hear it; items not on the table are hidden from everyone but the holder and the Archivist; nothing can be set aside without a reason; the table can’t send its timeline until every item is on the table and placed or set aside, at least one assumption is written and the closing sentence is in; two different people must agree to send it (a setting); any change withdraws a proposal to send; after sending nothing changes unless you reopen it.
Left to people: whether an item is an Event or an Account, the order, what counts as a guess, whether to trust an item, and the answer to the question. Those judgements are the learning.
The settings
Everything below is chosen on Set up a game, and can be changed on the tutor screen until the evidence is handed out.
| Seating | Students choose their table (the default): give each table a letter and students choose theirs on their phones. Nobody moves. Or deal tables at random, in tables of 3 to 6. |
|---|---|
| Archivist | On by default, at tables of four or more. Off: everyone keeps evidence, and anyone can write the closing sentence. |
| Research tokens | 4 per table by default (2 to 6). Fewer tokens means more is left blurred, and more has to be assumed. |
| Evidence | Full set, or a short set of core items for a tight slot. |
| Building time | 5 to 12 minutes. The clock is shown everywhere; you decide when to close. |
| Sending | Two people agree (the default), so one keen student can’t send the timeline for the table, or one person. |
The debrief
The world’s debrief questions, each tagged with the module thread it serves, appear on the tutor screen once the timelines are closed. Start from what is on the projector, so nobody has to speak for their table: where did tables disagree, and why?
What the game gets wrong
- Real evidence is not handed out in tidy single claims. The items are cut down, and some are summaries written for the game; each says so.
- The record is presented as if it settles things. It is evidence too, and the debrief should say so: a date can be disputed, and a translation is an interpretation.
- Event and Account is a simplification. A treaty is both a thing that happened and a text that says something, and a protest made at the time is both a source from the time and an Account. The record marks those items as defensible either way, and they are never counted as differences.
- Event and Account is not the same split as primary and secondary sources. A debrief question uses the difference.
Playing on your own
Students who missed the class, or want another go, can play at /solo. No invite code is needed. The page runs the same rules as the room, inside the student’s browser: nothing is sent to the server and nothing is stored outside that browser, so you can link to it from anywhere, including Blackboard.
- The student holds every item and places each straight from their Hand: there is no Table tab, because there is nobody to share with. They send the timeline alone. There is no Archivist and no timer.
- Instead of other tables, they compare their timeline with two sample timelines written for the world and labelled as such. Then they see the record, with time to scale, and each item’s full date and source.
- Playing alone leaves things out: nobody argues, the samples never change their minds, and the page does some of the judging. Worth saying when you point students to it.
- The game is kept in the browser, so a student can close the page and come back to it. Start again clears it.
Running it twice
Each seminar group gets a fresh room from Set up a game, or press Restart game on the tutor screen: open phones rejoin by themselves.
If something goes wrong
- A student’s phone dies. Their items stay with their table. If they hadn’t put them on the table, their table can’t send its timeline: close the timelines from the tutor screen, and the records list those items as never put on the table.
- A table sent its timeline too early. Press Reopen this timeline on its card while tables are building.
- A latecomer. They choose their table and help: they hold no items of their own, but can place and mark everything on the table.
- The game collapses. Go straight to the debrief questions with what is on the projector.
What is stored
Each phone joins with an anonymous random tag kept in its own browser. The game stores those tags, where each phone sits, and what students type: reasons for setting items aside, assumptions and closing sentences. No names, student numbers, email addresses or IP addresses are kept. Rooms are stored in the EU and deleted, with everything typed in them, 24 hours after set-up.
Worlds
A world is the episode a game is about: its question, its items of evidence and its debrief. New worlds are imported as world files on /admin by whoever holds the server’s key.