Ms. Pugh's Tech Site

What is Thinglink?

Thinglink is a website that teachers or students can use to make interactive graphics. Teachers can use these graphics in presentations, during lessons, or they can give them to students to refer to when completing assignments. The website allows users to select a background image and then add links and information on top of it. The informations shows up as an icon that can be clicked and then a pop-up window will appear. Thinglink is a fun and engaging way to convey information to students, and teachers of upper grades can even have students make Thinglinks as an assignment.

What I created with Thinglink

I used Thinglink to make a graphic that goes along with the Kindergarten standard RL.K.6 "With prompting and support, define the role of the author and illustrator in telling the story." The graphic allows students to explore the different parts of the book. Each icon tells them a different thing. There is an icon that teaches students about the title, about the author, about the illustrator, and about the cover and spine. Thinglink allows users to add pictures and gifs and videos along with their descriptions. This is a helpful feature when it comes to helping students understand the content. For my author and illustrator icons, I was able to add a Youtube video that plays the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell" and included lyrics to a song that students can sing to this tune to help them memorize the roles of the author and illustrator.

Tips for using Thinglink

Educators can use Thinglink in their classroom for various things. It can be used to introduce students to new content, remind student of content they have already learned, showcase student work, or as a fun assignment tool. Users should take advantage of the different features Thinglink has to offer. For example, the option to embed videos on to their graphic is a helpful. Thinglink is a great platform for teachers to be able to go in depth with their content and include a lot of resources and information in one place. I can imagine Thinglink being a very helpful tool for upper grades because it can be used for things such as history timelines, math procedures, or science topics. Teachers and students can sign up for a free account and have access to many of the features Thinglink has to offer. Thinglink also allows you to download the interactive graphic so it can be used without WiFi. I highly reccommend this website to educators, it would might a great addition to their twenty first century classroom!