Multimedia creation tool for your students.

I think that this tool definitely gives students the creative ability to construct their own knowledge about a topic through the use of the base image. As a teaching tool itself, an educator could search through the already constructed images to find one that fits their theme and use it for direct teaching. But if you are looking for a start up and go teaching tool, this isn't it- it is a creative annotation tool that requires work to get a finished product. In my opinion this is an engaging program/app that allows students to explore the Internet for supporting information and media pertinent to a topic; an alternative to the end of unit assessment. It can easily be adapted for individual or group work, and a teacher of students with special needs could do more direct teaching as the students verbally generate the tags. I know that the search feature for tags requires spelling accuracy for the best search choices, so this could be a roadblock for students with spelling difficulties. Overall, I feel a teacher that appreciates creative presentations and engaging students in novel ways will find value and success with ThingLink.

This project is a valuable teaching tool.

As with most digital tools, it's all in how you use it that determines how it affects the overall learning in your classroom. More teacher-centered uses of a tool tend to require lower-level thinking while student-centered activities require more higher-level thinking. The power with Thinglink comes from putting it into the students hands. What I like the most about Thinglink is the ease of use. It won't take any time for you or your students to create one and share. This allows you and your students to focus more on content and less on the technology. The free version of Thinglink is enough. If you don't have time to create your own Thinglink for your students, search the already-created ones because you will most likely find something that is perfect. If it's not, you can quickly edit it to suit your students' needs. I also like the fact that you can help students better understand a concept by including various and multiple representations of it (an article, a video, sounds, etc.) all to aid in deeper learning. With 360-degree images becoming so popular now, Thinglink now has the ability to upload those types of images that truly brings learning to life. Take students to places that they've never been with the use of this feature.