I learned about Thinglink from Susan Oxnevad. It is a website that allows you to turn any iamge into an interactive one with hotspots called nubbins. (Just scroll over the image and the interactive nubbins will appear, then click on it to be taken to another site.) You create an account, upload an image and then link anything with a URL to your image. here is one of my first Thinglinks.
After I played around with this tool, I thought of a way to use it with my students. I would have them create animal reports using Thinglink. Since they are too young to create accounts, I created another account on Thinglink and used my classroom name on it. I then went over the requirements of the report with my students.
They had to find an image of their animal that was licensed for reuse, and the first nubbin they would add to their Thinglink was the link to the original image. They then had to find three online resources where they would gather facts for their report, and one non YouTube video about their animal. All of these sites where added to their Thinglink. The next step was to write their animal report as a post to their kiblog and embed their Thinglink into the post.
Check out Chloe's Hedgehog Thinglink. (One of the nubbins takes you to her report on her blog.)
Here is Mariam's Butterfly Thinglink.
After we finished the animal reports, my students begged me to let them do other projects using Thinglink. Here is one by Joshua that he made as part of his Passion Project.
My fourth graders and I will definitely be using Thinglink to create some projects this year.
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