ThingLink for Education

Have you ever wondered how to add interactivity to your mind maps? Wouldn’t it be great if you could package explanations with the content of your mind maps, without creating something cluttered and hard to read? You can accomplish this goal by using a tool called ThingLink.

ThingLink inserts a layer over the top of an image or video and enables you to quickly and easily create interactive hotspots. Each hotspot can contain a text box and hypertext link. This makes it possible for publishers, educators, brands and bloggers to create interactive experiences for their audiences.

...We're going to take a look at the ThingLink app which has been used here at iPad Educators to deliver some of our biggest projects including App Wars and the recent Game of Apps. With ThingLink, teachers and students can easily enhance images and videos by tagging them with additional notes, photos, audio, video and other multimedia content. ThingLinks can then be shared via a URL. It's a great example of an app that can be implemented across the curriculum and harnessed by any teacher after no more than 5 minutes of familiarisation. The beauty of ThingLink really is its simplicity - click on a part of a image and then tag an annotation, be it text, another image or a video.

Learn the basics of Thinglink and how to use it in just a few minutes!

A short description of ThingLink as an alternative to Powerpoint, Prezi, etc.-- Created using PowToon

Add interactive elements to your image and video media in 3 simple steps. www.thinglink.com/signup

All about Thingllink in 3 minutes or less!

earn how to use ThingLink to register your students and manage your classroom!

No more posterboards for the landfill!

In this free learning tutorial you will learn how to use two iPad apps - Thing Link and Pic Collage. You will learn how to layer them together, using the best features of each to maximise student learning potential for the learning intentions you plan for them to complete. (AppSmashing)

Besides how I used Thinglink, I believe there are an infinite number of ways to use this in the classroom. Students could create a “get to know you” profile for their classmates to explore. In a music classroom, it could be used to make visuals audible by using pictures of a symphony, scenes from an opera, or baroque instruments that students are not familiar with today.

Slideshow: Control panel, micro image, channels, videos

Step by step tutorial on how to use ThingLink Premium features

A great overview of ThingLink and its many features. Slide show with speaker notes. (Click on the gear in the menu bar to view the notes.)

This may sound odd, and neglectful of computing, but my theory is that by using technology to create engaging, interactive revision guides that both bookmarked useful sites and allowed students to create their own content, I would be providing them with the best of both worlds; time to learn, consolidate and revise but also time to create high quality digital content.

The ideal tool to do this is Thinglink. A free resource that allows users to pin links/video clips/images to an image of their choosing.

Students were encouraged to pick curriculum areas in which they lacked confidence and then develop their research skills and collate useful and helpful websites. Short descriptions and links were then added to their Thinglinks that explained the resource at the other end of the link.

Here are some great ways to utilize ThingLink in the classroom.

Thinglink Classroom combined with Thinglink's remix function can provide you with a nice way to build image-based review activities. One example of this is taking an image of a map and inserting questions on top of it. After building your questions on top of the image share it with your students and have them remix it to answer your questions.

Making the task a little easier for students....

ThingLink is a Web 2.0 teaching and learning tool that inspires creativity, communication, and critical thinking in the 21st century classroom. Student-centered learning occurs as students work individually or in collaboration to create their own ThingLinks.

Beginning with the selection of "just the right" picture or graphic to use sparks students' creativity and critical thinking skills.

Locating and evaluating possible media resources to tag requires critical analysis and decision-making. Vital 21st century learning skills are used as students investigate the links on a teacher-created rich image - analyzing different components and creating new knowledge.

Communication skills are developed as they relate their research findings to others and defend their choices of resources on their tagged images.

Do you sometimes struggle to find a balance between digital and analog work in your day to day classroom? Discover ways to incorporate both into projects.

And so the good news is… Stuff just got a little “tackk-y” on the edtech scene. What am I talking about? Well, according to the latest scoop, ThingLink just hooked up with a pretty nifty cool tool called Tackk, a free service that can be utilized to quickly create simple webpages similar to a digital flyer or poster to announce important events, classroom or school information and/or to highlight digital projects and media.

I work with some of the best educators ever! I especially love collaborating with a third grade teacher who likes to find new ways of integrating technology into her students’ learning. Last year, we had a project where the students picked a subject and presented what they learned, using ThingLink. It was a very simple, straight-forward assignment which required a link, video, image(s), and text.

Detailed instructions for education accounts, building your ThingLink classroom and more from Susan Oxnevad, ThingLink Education Community Manager.

Boost inquiry by curating resources, and encouraging creativity, with ThingLink. Set students up for sucessful learning.

Our inquiry into hibernation began with the incredible book Over and Under The Snow by Kate Messner. We started wondering how animals could sleep for so long, and asking other questions.

I wanted my 1st graders to be more indepedent in collecting information during this project, so I set up this ThingLink with videos, recorded books, links, and book images to get them started. The books are ones we have in our classroom and were set up as part of our science station. I provided a QR code to access the ThingLink, and students took it from there. They wrote and drew to record their information.

I love this quote from a student! Click on the title above to see the tweet from his teacher.

ThingLink is pleased to announce verified accounts for school districts along with the release of an updated iOS app that is well suited for educational use, making ThingLink EDU better than ever for teaching and learning!

1) Navigate between the Students and Groups sub-tabs with just a click to see an overview of all your students and groups. 2) Click on a student’s name to reveal their account details. 3) Manage groups by clicking on the Groups sub-tab and selecting a group. Add new students, delete old ones, and view all members in one spot.

Resources to help you get the most out of your ThingLink education account. Includes a slide deck with pdf handout as well as info on becoming a ThingLink Expert Educator

Thinglink is one of my new favorite 21st Century tools! I've been finding new ideas for how to use it in the classroom, and the more I use it, the more versatile I find it to be! (Great ideas and examples here!)

ThingLink has developed tools for image interaction that allow content sharing via online images. ThingLink technology changes how people engage with photos by transforming them from a static image, into a navigational surface for exploring rich, relevant content that enhances the viewer’s knowledge and experience. ThingLink is helping define pop culture with a transformational, engaging, adoptable, and viral media/content serving format.

A new Thinklink user, Steve takes a map of Ancient Greece into Thinglink to make it interactive with some great results. Be sure to notice the assessment links/tags as well as the information the map provides.

Thinglink is slick, creative and simple to use. Teachers and students can easily create interactive images and videos for presentations, projects or any digital explanation of learning. We have all heard the expression, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Thinglink takes that concept up a huge notch. Imagine asking your students to do their report with a single image that has multiple links to websites, videos they have created, or any digital asset that helps explain their understanding of the concept. It would be such a refreshing change from the standard PowerPoint. Give students an opportunity to try Thinglink as a project option and step back and be amazed at their creative abilities to bring digital resources together. I made my first one this evening and found it super simple. It’s a combination of technology integration and BYOD. The name Thinglink is so perfect because all you need is a “thing” to add “links” to and you can create a whole project.

The learners were provided with prepositions and example sentence fragments in which they occur. They then had to find images that related to a combination of the prepositions and through ThingLink add their own complete sentences onto the image and share it with me to be checked. (Examples follow.)

Foreign language (Could also be English language arts)

A podcast featuring ThingLink ideas, interviews, getting started and more!

Check out this interactive image for dozens of ideas for using ThingLink in education.

A collaborative Google Docs presentation with info and ideas for using Thinglink in Education

Move away from the drib drab of everyday lessons, build engagement and get more interactive using this creative free web-based tool called ThingLink. Great examples and how-tos!

We’ve put together 12 examples of ways to embrace ThingLink for teaching and learning in the New Year. The ideas are for those who are just starting out, or for those who already love ThingLink! We hope you will get inspired by the interactive images created by our talented community members over the course of the last 12 months. To learn how to use any of these ideas in your classroom, click the information link below each example. Happy New Year!

When I first learned about ThingLink late last summer, I was immediately impressed. My mind started racing about all the ways that ThingLink could be used by teachers, students and even beyond the classroom. If you're not familiar with ThingLink, it makes images interactive.

A Thinglink of ideas for using Thinglink in education

Here are some great ways to utilize ThingLink in the classroom.

Why ThingLink works well in the classroom - And 4 great ideas for using it!

Students can create, collaborate and communicate and engage in critical thinking and problem solving using ThingLink. A great overview of ThingLink and the many ways it can be used in educational settings.

A Video Tutorial on Integrating Thinklink into the classroom and beyond.