Leveraging the power of technology to transform teaching and learning
To engage students in learning, it’s important to help them make connections to their own world. This classroom kick off activity sets the tone for making those personal connections . The activity can also be very useful for gauging students’ problem-solving and research skills as you facilitate a similar activity in the classroom. This activity provides teachers with the great opportunity to address Internet safety and digital citizenship at the start of the year and the avatar can continue to remind students to protect their identities while online.
There’s still time to join us for this flexible summer learning adventure. All you have to do is sign up. After you sign up, you will receive an email with the invite code to join our district organization group named ThingLink Teacher Challenge. This will allow you to access our shared workspace. This will also give you access to the EDU Premium trial for use during the Teacher Challenge.This will allow us to share the invite code so you can join our district organization group and access the shared workspace. This will also give you access to the EDU Premium trial offered through this challenge.
We hope you will join us for this fun filled and excited, self-paced professional learning opportunity. Questions? Please email Susan@thinglink.com.
ThingLink Teacher Challenge Launched at #ISTE2015
Meet the ThingLink Teacher Challenge Participants
Unpacking Google Apps for the Teacher Challenge
Convert a ThingLink Account to EDU
Today I am pleased announce the launch of the ThingLink App Smash Challenge! #TLAppSmash. This mini version of the ThingLink Teacher Challenge #TLChallenge is designed to inspire, build excitement, share ideas and learn. Most importantly, it is designed to fit within a busy teacher’s schedule during the month of November.
The series of posts will be published on the ThingLink Blog.
App Smashing is a popular method of combining two or more apps together to create, publish and share content. App Smashing challenges us to discover new possibilities for teaching and learning with an iPad and presents us with greater possibilities for making the device meet our goals. ThingLink is well suited for for powering any App Smash because of the presentation possibilities for turning any image into a rich multimedia content launcher. Join the talented members of the ThingLink EDU community and use ThingLink to smash some apps. #TLAppSmash
Interactive images with the most Touches will be invited to share during our Interactive App Smash in early December.
Explore the channel of interactive directions below for tutorials and more.
The examples in the channel below were created by ThingLink Expert Educators. Interactive images submitted for the App Smash Challenge will be added to this channel. Get inspired and connect!
//www.thinglink.com/channelcard/587616807276249092
To demonstrate the power of a new ThingLink feature known as Add to Channel, I used this blog for a bit of crowdsourcing yesterday. I asked readers to submit links to images about outer space through a simple Google Form. Then I demonstrated how to use the form to instantly capture and curate the interactive images into a Space Channel!
Image curation has never been easier with Add to Channel, and collecting the links is a breeze with a Google Form. Here are the images collect so far. Nice!
To demonstrate the power of a new ThingLink feature known as Add to Channel, I am offering readers of this blog a chance to crowdsource. After I collect some links through this simple Google Form, I can instantly capture and curate the interactive images into a Channel! Image curation has never been easier with Add to Channel, and collecting the links is a breeze with a Google Form.
I chose the topic of outer space because I know there are many fantastic ThingLinks out there. Once I find them I will have an amazing resource to share with all. Please submit a link to an image and check back in the morning to see the curated channel of space images.
This summer I spent much of my work time helping educators learn to embrace the power of ThingLink as a tool for Teaching and Learning. Along the way, I created a wealth of resources using a variety of formats to accommodate the learning needs of busy teachers.
The resources created have been collected and curated into one interactive image. I believe they are valuable for personal learning needs, as well as for use during professional development offerings. They were created to be shared and reused.
Are you looking for a user friendly and flexible tool to help you easily create engaging multimedia rich content to redefine teaching and learning? Are you interested in using technology to meet the personal learning needs of the students in your classroom? We invite you to attend our free webinar and explore the powerful possibilities that exist with ThingLink EDU.
ThingLink EDU is a digital tool that provides users with the ability to turn any image or video into a multimedia rich interactive learning tool. Start with an image or start with a video. Annotate it with audio, video, images and links to any content on the Internet with the click of a button.
Please join us for a free webinar as we explore inspiring examples and easy-to-follow instructions to help you transform teaching and redefine learning with ThingLink.
August 18th at 4:00 PM CST
EdTech You Should Know is a new show in the Instructional Tech Talk network of podcasts, created and facilitated by innovative educator Jeff Herb. The show features one educational technology tool per episode that is worth knowing about. The episodes are less than 10 minutes and they are designed to offer educators a taste of the great EdTech that’s out there.
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| Explore this interactive image by @pmmerlin on our wall |
This week’s ThingLink Teacher Challenged asked participants to grab their mobile devices, get away from wifi, and explore use of the ThingLink App beyond the walls.
The ThingLink app makes the most out of the ease of use of the camera and video capabilities available on iOS and Android, allowing users to capture life on the go and become engaged in the learning at the moment.
I am truly enjoying facilitating the ThingLink Teacher Challenge this summer because it has allowed me to connect with some amazing educators. We are all learning, creating and sharing together.
One of the early challenges was to Design Your Digital Self as an introduction to other participants. We started by creating an avatar, then we added it to ThingLink and tagged our images with Rich Media tags to define ourselves through multimedia.
I used Padlet to create a wall of ThingLink Teacher Challenge participants and would like to introduce readers of this blog to these amazing educators. The activity itself can be used with students as you kick off the school year and establish best practices for Internet safety as you teach them about protecting their identities when publishing anything on the web.
//padlet.com/embed/moynodk81m36
Cool Tools for 21st Century Learners 