ThingLink: My new favorite tool!
- enlane
- Sep 8, 2015
- 3 min read
I love finding new web tools that I can use to present information. My favorite ones are interactive, easy to change, and of course, free. I have discovered a new tool that is all three of these things! This tool is called ThingLink. ThingLink can be accessed by simply going to the ThingLing website which can be found here.
I also love that this tool does not have to be downloaded to your computer to work. It can be accessed from the internet so you don't have to worry about differing computer platforms between school and home.
This tool is a way to present information in a fun, vibrant manor. You can add vibrant backgrounds, photos, captions, titles, labels, and paragraphs.You can also link photos, documents, websites, videos, and link to your social media.
Students can use this to label photos, to study, to use for comparison, to learn or to present
information. To get started, you must first upload a background. You can import from the internet, facebook, or from your computer's library. You can also drag and drop photos onto the page to begin. Once the image is uploaded, you can click anywhere on the photo to add a "tag". Once you add a tag, you can enter text either labeling or describing that tag. The tag can be as many words as you'd like! You can also link your tag to another image or webadress. This is where you are able to link YouTube videos, Google Docs, Sound Cloud links and anything else you might find useful. In my example photos, I put a tag on the human head labeling it "head". I then linked the tag to the Meriam-Webster Dictionary definition of head.You can also search directly on the website for multi-media links.
When you go to save your creation, you can choose to create a channel to save it to. This channel will be under your personal account so you can find your creations easier. You can then share your presentation to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, email, etc. You can also go back and edit your presentation after you've saved it.
As a college student, I see myself using this tool to create an About Me introduction. I can upload photos of myself, add tags stating things I enjoy or things about me. I can also link to a favorite song or a photo of my family as well as my social media sites. I also love organizing my information as I learn it, so I could see myself using this as a study tool. I could add a collage of historical figures and upload a soundclip describing them, upload english words and add tags of the spanish word to help study for a Spanish test, or label a photo of a cell with the tags representing the different part names.
Teachers could use this tool to label parts of a whole. For example, a fifth grader learning about the different parts of the cell could learn from labeling a photo of a cell with tags describing each part's name. Teachers could also use this tool with fourth grade students to create a place where the entire class can access book talks done by each student. The teacher could upload a photo of each book and then tag each cover with a voice recording of the student doing their book talk. In first grade, students could title their art work and upload a photo of what moved them to create that art or a link to a voice thread of them describing their artwork or the story behind it. These are just a couple of examples of ways that this tool can be used in the classroom, but I truly believe that with ThingLink, the possibilities are endless.
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