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ThingLink

Want to develop digital storytelling skills by creating interactive images and videos?

A suite of digital storytelling tools designed to accelerate learning by creating dynamic multimedia images, videos and 360° virtual lessons, building a visual and immersive learning experience.

HundrED 2018
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Overview

HundrED has selected this innovation to

HundrED 2018

Web presence

2010

Established

-

Children

245

Countries
Target group
All
Updated
September 2017
Creating an interactive virtual tour is a project that requires planning, creativity and collaboration, letting students become storytellers.

About the innovation

What is ThingLink?

Education is shifting from reading textbooks in the classroom to active knowledge-building through any device with an internet connection. With ThingLink, students anywhere in the world can travel across distance and time to stunning 360° environments and create virtual tours of their own.

ThingLink was founded to enable hyperlinks in images, so that whenever a learner is browsing through photographs, maps, graphs or videos, they can simply click on anything they see to find out more. At its core, ThingLink is a tool to enable visual storytelling and add context to an image. This is done by using ThingLink’s image editor to link one thing (such as a person or an object in an image) to another (that provides additional information about the first thing).

Creating an interactive image with a group of students is one of the most efficient methods of building knowledge in the classroom. Students can use various forms of text, audio, video, photography and illustrations to show and share their learning. For example, students have documented plants and animals for a virtual nature path, created a culture tour to another school and documented a field trip to a historic landmark.

Students work together to produce background research, storylines and rich multimedia documentation, which increases both cognitive and emotional engagement with the subject of the study.

Impact & scalability

Impact & Scalability

Innovativeness

ThingLink users are building a web of images that make it possible for students to virtually travel across distance and time to learn anything they want.

Impact

ThingLink has a variety of impacts on students, such as its ability to engage students of different ages and learning styles through the creation of digital media. It supports digital literacy, research and documentation of learning. It also develops collaboration and communication skills while engaging in real-world learning experiences.

Scalability

The community is growing organically through word of mouth and there are ThingLink users in every country in the world. Today, 3 million teachers and students use ThingLink to create images and 40 million people interact with ThingLink images every month.

Implementation steps

Sign up on thinglink.com
Individual teachers, whole schools and districts can all sign up for a ThingLink account.

Individual teachers can sign up on thinglink.com, choosing 'education' and 'teacher' roles. School or districts can contact ThingLink at education@thinglink.com to activate a school account. A range of subscriptions are available for both individual teachers and whole schools.

Set goals and make an action plan for creating an interactive image story
This will depend on what individual teachers and schools want to achieve with their students.

For inspiration, there are some examples from other teachers on the ThingLink website. Students can create individual image projects, such as maps and drawings enriched with additional information, or work together to document various activities, such as field trips. Interactive images can be used effectively to demonstrate learning, initiate conversations, present situations and reflect on past experiences.

Create a student group
This can be done as soon as a new teacher or school account is set up on ThingLink.

On thinglink.com, click 'Groups' from the drop-down selection in the top right-hand corner. To create a new group, click the plus sign and write the name of the group in the text box. Use the invitation code of the group to invite students.

Create a project
Now the learners can start creating interactive images!

Go to the 'Projects' tab to create a new project. In 'Materials', add any base images or inspirational images that students can begin to work on. The students will automatically see these materials when they join the group. And then the fun part can begin!

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