If you would of asked me what my favorite interactive-poster tool was, I WOULD of said ThingLink. This was my goto tool for student, teachers, sharing resources, app smashing, and showcasing in a demo slam. It has been a few weeks/months since I have used the tool, but the free version is NOTHING compared to what it used to be. Now in order to get the editing options that really bring a picture to life, you have to pay.
Now with this being said, I still love Thinglink. Being able to easily link your Google account to a universally accessible (web, Android, and iOS) presentation tool is a pleasant surprise in the EdTech community. The app was easy to open and get things rolling. I went with a hosted image and starting adding tags to support the topic of TED. I have done a few conferences on TED and will be hosting a TEDx event this year. Thought this would be a great addition to my presentation and something to share with teachers new to TED. I went with the focus of creating strong presentations and the skills required to do so.
My favorite feature of ThingLink is the “app smashing” capabilities. People unfamiliar with this term, it means to combine tools (analog or digital) to create the best product that meets the overarching learning objective. You can learn more about “app smashing” here. Being able to link to other digital tools in a quick-and-easy manner isn’t always EASY. Thinglink embeds most web addresses from other services with a quick tag. I also have seen some teachers create an infographic or diagram to use as the background image and then tag for more resources; this is very popular like Tackk and Smore.
ThingLink is multi-functional tool. It can take the shape of a “resource-board” for teachers or an interactive presentation for students. When looking for a simple presentation tool, I usually recommended it because of the app and sharing features. As for the ISTE standards for students, it is an open-ended tool allowing for authentic creativity and technology-use. Also students can easily share and publish their work for peers and professionals to view. As for digital research, it does link to outside resources, but this requires further investigation to deem credible of the sources. This does lend to critical thinking and problem solving skills for the students.
Add-on: the video tagging feature is great, but has room to grow. I would check out EdPuzzle, VideoAnt, eduCanon, YouTube Creator, or Zaption.
Thinglink is a great Web 2.0 option. As you stated they have started to limit what can be done in the free account which is truly disappointing because Thinglink really tries to push the service to educators. In fact, at the end of the school year my librarian had 5th graders completing an author study using Thinglink and- no joke- in the middle of their project some of the features had changed, limiting them to what they could do from then on. That was truly frustrating!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post on the tool, well done. Your TED presentation actually sounds like the perfect fit for the 2016 ICE Conference! I hope you'll consider applying.
P.S....don't forget to link this to your wiki page!
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