Learning with Technology...A Reflection

Wednesday, July 23, 2014 1 comment

Describe the technology you explored and how you intend to use it in your course.  If you created anything with the tool while exploring its potential, provide us with a link (if the creation is online) or attach the product you created with the tool.  If you just practiced, but didn't create anything then share your screen shots (or phone cam images) of your practice.  

I chose to explore ThingLink. ThingLink is the leading platform for creating interactive images. ThingLink enables you to see your images come alive with video, text, images, music and more.

I intend to use this for introductions, important documents, and anything that I think would be enhanced by using this tool. I think this would be a great tool for my students to use as they complete assignments for the course.

Make sure to hover over the images to have the interactive experience begin. smile

Here is a link to one I created for the SAMR Model: http://www.thinglink.com/scene/548532121413615616

Also see below:



Here is one I created for next weeks Professional Learning: http://www.thinglink.com/scene/548553086541496320



I also created these for my elementary and secondary teacher friends:

Describe how the use of this tool will support presence and interactions in your course and how it helps address your course objectives. 

This tool can be updated as you see fit, so you can continually be present in your images and what you want them to say. ThingLink is a living tool that is ever changing to meet the objectives of your course. It is not your standard image that you look at once and move on. There are different areas on the image that require a person to interact. It may be through text, links, or video.
This tool addresses the objectives of my course by helping students learn and plan great active learning activities based on the SAMR Model approach.


Tell us about your experiences with the tool - was it easy to learn?  Engaging?  Useful? 

The tool was very easy to learn. You upload and image and then tag away by clicking anywhere on the image. There is also a good amount of help documentation for ThingLink. It was very engaging as I enjoyed using the tool and creating what would work best for me. As I created what I wanted using the tool I started to get more ideas of how I could use it in my course. Once you get started, the ideas start flowing. I found this tool to be very useful, interactive, productive, and technology driven.

Another great thing about ThingLink is that it tracks clicks on your images. You get great stats on how many people are utilizing what you created.