Community reviews for ThingLink

One of the best features within ThingLink is that is can be shared and embedded. You can create a phenomenal ThingLink image and embed it into your class website or a Learning Management System (our district uses Schoology) to facilitate an online discussion or you can even use it to make interactive assessments. It can also be a great tool for students to demonstrate their own learning. Before having students create their own ThingLink, I would check out their Terms of Service especially if you are working with students under 13 years old.

This tool provides opportunities way beyond math class. I like that students can integrate multiple different types of media, to best suit their needs.

Loved the fact that a ton of information can be linked to a picture allowing you to "house" all the relevant items in one related place.

If you have accessibility to the website, I highly suggest trying it. During the 2013-2014 school year the website began to get flooded with a lot of private projects and sometimes school inappropriate files, so I advise teachers to always thoroughly check the current traffic and usage of the website during the time they are planning to use such an online tool.

It may be beneficial to provide students with an example of what you are looking for. This can provide a bit of clarity for the students and ensure they are taking "deep dives" and reflecting about their pieces. Another piece that could promote collaboration is to have students share with a partner, allowing them to get feedback from peers and then time to remix their thinglink. Setting clear expectations help with this tool. Some students spend too much time trying to find their main image. Thinglink is a new way to create interactive projects and can be used across all contents.

I think there is a lot of potential for ThingLink to be a productive teaching tool- depending on what content the teacher includes. Students could also create a ThingLink as an extension activity or for additional practice on a topic. I liked being able to add images and text to a specific point on the background image- videos hosted on the web can also be added. One difficulty was that the web-based version of ThingLink requires a URL to add photos- but the app does not. Since the pictures were taken on a personal device, I had to create and add content to the ThingLink using my cell phone. This added to the amount of time it took to create the ThingLink, since creating it was a little more difficult on the small cell phone screen.

The product itself is not educational. It's designed for magazines and product catalogs such as for IKEA and Nike. But with a free education account, teachers can use a simple but powerful tool. If used to have students select relevant information and summarize their learning, it can be a quick, interactive activity that helps foster understanding.

I think that this product is fantastic as a way to develop concepts or explain parts of something quite complex. I love the options to add text and/or links. But I think sometimes there can be a danger in information overload if teachers aren't wise with how they use it. In terms of student creation, I wish that students could share images with each other so that they can collaborate in real time on creating their own interactive images. Right now the owner of the image can make it so that anyone can modify and add tags.Students can collaborate, but they must emails the links to one another or use a url shortener. I think the best application of thinglink is asking students to explain their thinking when solving a problem or when constructing a paragraph. They can take a picture or screenshot of their writing or math problem. Then use the tags to explain the thinking behind the calculation or perhaps the use of figurative language. As a teacher in a Google school, I appreciate that students can sign in with their Google+ accounts, but since so many of my students do not have a Google+ account, I would appreciate if kids could just link their Google accounts.

I really like using ThingLink to introduce content. A well-made ThingLink with a variety of imbedded media will appeal to multiple learning styles. Links to more in-depth content provides a way to differentiate for advanced learners. As I mentioned earlier, I think the app is better than the web version. ThiingLink offers a paid service for businesses/advertisers, but they do a good job of keeping that content separate from the educational content. When signing up for an account, be sure to sign up for the free teacher account (www.thinglink.com/edu).

Students loved presenting their information using this program. They were much more excited and willing to get up in front of the class.