THINGLINK

 

Thinglink makes education engaging with the use of rich media that can turn any image, video or virtual reality experience into learning. The power of ThingLink is in its ability to pull in so many forms of rich media. Link to a useful website, add in your own vocal prompts, place images within videos, and more. ThingLink is not only for teachers though. It can also be a useful tool for creating and submitting work, encouraging students to incorporate varying sources of information and overlay it all into one coherent project. ThingLink is available online and also via iOS and Android apps. Since the data is stored in the cloud it makes for low-impact use on devices and is easy to share with a simple link.ThingLink allows you to begin with either an image from the device you're using, or from the internet. This also applies to videos and to 360-degree virtual reality shots. Once you've selected your base image, you're then able to begin tagging. Select something on the image you want to tag, tap it and then either enter text, tap the microphone to record an audio note or paste a link in from an external source. You then can edit the tag to show what is available with icons for images, videos, links, and more. Add as many or as few tags as needed and ThingLink will save your progress as you go along. When finished, you'll see an upload icon as the project is uploaded to the ThingLink servers. You should then be able to share the link, which will take anyone clicking on it to the ThingLink website, so they won't need an account to use the project online. Aside from the tagging system that works well to enhance media with a level of depth that makes typical slideshow presentations feel very outdated, ThingLink also has a powerful language tool. From tagging maps and charts to creating stories within images, this has huge teaching potential and is only limited by the creativity of the person using the tool. This makes for a great formative assessment tool, collating learnings from a period of time, ideal for use before a quiz, say. Since the content can be very graphical, it allows ThingLink projects to transcend language, making projects accessible across communication barriers. That said, there is also an Immersive Reader, as it's called, which allows text to be displayed in more than 60 languages. This even offers useful color-coded guidance that shows nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on – which can be activated as needed.