This has been a monumental year at our school. We made the move to 1:1 iPad and like everyone else we have experienced wonderful successes, and yes, spectacular failures. As I began the process of reevaluating pretty much everything in my curriculum, I made one vow to myself and my students, which was not to inundate them with thousands of apps.
Just one single visit to the app store can cause all kinds of app fatigue and there is always something new and powerful to try. Throughout the year, I have tried many and put them through the test, even getting a focus group of students involved to determine which ones were most useful.
One that came sprang to my attention at the beginning of the year was Thinglink. It allows the user to upload an image and make it interactive. The old saying of "a picture can tell a thousand words" becomes a reality with this site and app. Thinglink allows users to generate a variety of tags composed of video, music, links or simply text to make the image interactive.
My classes recently completed a semester long memorial project in which they researched a person or event from American history that they wanted to learn more about. In the end they produced a research paper and they designed a memorial representing their subject. Through the years, there have been mind blowing projects turned in and I have always longed to keep more than just a picture of them to show future classes.
This year, each student created a digital copy of their project using Thinglink. Rather than just a picture, students have now been able to tag all the symbolic elements of their projects, providing the viewer a virtual tour. Not only that, they were also able to provide extra information relevant to their topic such as site links and videos of themselves and short documentaries. It has been a great success and students have also enjoyed showing off their work.
Unlike many apps, Thinglink is also computer based too. There are definite advantages to both. I actually prefer the functionality of the actual website, because there are more editing options such as different buttons and such. Regardless, it is a great tool and one that is not just flashy, but one that also gets those creative and educational juices flowing.
Here are some examples of some student projects.
The Manhattan Project
The Secret Six
