Tag Archives: ThingLink

BYOD4L Communicating

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Bring Your Own Devices 4 Learning #BYOD4L

This week I’m taking part in this online course. Here are some useful links:
byod4l wordpress
@byod4l
Google+ community BYOD4L Learning COmmunity

Tuesday – Communicating

In the student scenario the student talked about joining a degree course as a mature student and seeking to manage the demands of university study, a job and family life and considered the challenge of how to use technology to stay in touch with his course and fellow students. This is exactly the situation the students I teach are in. They are Teaching Assistants (TAs) in schools, coming to university for one day a week so its vital for them to be able to stay in touch with us and each other when they are not at university.

For us as lecturers we have a several channels of communication:

Blackboard NILE – announcements, which we often choose to have sent as emails to students. We hope we can guarantee that everyone gest this information.

Course Blog – to share interesting items and resources that is additional to core content. Students are encouraged to subscribe to this so that they will get an email alert when a new post appears. A link to this is also tweeted.

Email – to individuals, usually responsive to student questions and concerns.

NILE discussion boards – Sometimes we create a NILE discussion board for students to use to ask questions and share ideas, especially about assignments. This allows tutor answers to be shared by all students and might mean that we don’t have to answer the same question via email to many individuals.

Task 1 Visualising – A representation of myself as a communicator: I created this ThingLink introducing My Digital Self in the summer.

Task 2 Making – I’ve represented a summary of my formal channels of communication as lecturer with students using Penultimate:

IMG_0090

Task 3 Reflection – We allow students to decide and manage communication within groups for themselves and this often evolves. Perhaps it is dependent on someone in the group deciding to take the initiative using a channel they favour. One group has a Facebook group and another use Whats app. As tutors we do not get involved with this but are aware of some of answers to questions, for example, being shared in this way. My only concern is that the chosen channel does not exclude some students in the group eg if a group used Facebook but one or two members are adamantly against Facebook and so are exclude from the conversation and support.

My reflection  on future actions – I wonder if we need to be more proactive about this during Induction into year 1 so that students choose one from several channels after discussion of their features and the students’ own devices, skills and attitudes to them. I think I will contact each existing group and ask what they use and their evaluation of it to see if we can learn something from this ready for the students who join us in September 2016.

BYOD4L Connecting

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Bring Your Own Devices 4 Learning #BYOD4L

This week I’m taking part in this online course. Here are some useful links:
byod4l wordpress
@byod4l
Google+ community BYOD4L Learning COmmunity

Monday – Connecting
In the student scenario the student wanted to use social media to search for up to date material in her area of interest – well being. This is an interesting question – the wide range of a connections that can be made on Twitter can be useful here. It’s possible to find people who are working in your field, or interesting in it and learning about it. Ideas and links to resources, activities and publications are often shared. You can take part in organised chats or unexpected exchanges with people you might never be able to meet and work with face to face.
There are associated challenges – how do we track of all the links and ideas we come across? How do we help students learn to evaluate what they come across online in social media so they can use of in an academic context and understand its reliability and validity?
Keeping track – in the past I have used bit.ly, now I’m using Pocket to save links and resources that I coma across. I also use Twitter itself by ‘liking’ interesting things so I can come back to them later. I sometimes post links to a relevant Google community eg our Mobile Learning community at work.
Evaluation – I’ve seen Padlet used as a way of sharing useful academic resources with students and teaching them to evaluate sources.

Task 1 – who is who? completed on Google+ (using my digital self ThingLink) and In the Twitter chat
Task 2 – making – I used ThingLink to collect all the various spaces where BYOD4L is happening and collect them together on one image. You can see it here: ThingLink BYOD4L2016
Task 3 – reflection – in the Twitter chat we talked about using Twitter or another channel communication with students. Getting everyone to use the same channel is a challenge as we all have our personal preferences. Suggesting about showing how useful a channels is made me think I could try again maybe by having a Twitter recommendation or tweeter of the week on our course blog.

 

ThingLink – adding tags to a video

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As well as bring able to add tags to a photo ThingLink tags can also be added to  videos. This can be used to add commentary, guidance, additional information and questions. Here is an example where I have chosen a story and added guided reading questions:

1. Choosing a video

To make a video ThingLink you will need to choose a video from YouTube and copy the link to it.  if you want to use a video that you have made you will need to upload it to YouTube first.  To begin click the red create icon at the top of the page and choose ‘web’ to add the YouTube link in the box.

tlv1

 2. Adding tags to your video

When you have entered the link click on the blue ‘tag this media’ label. The video will open in the tagging screen which is similar to when you tag photos. Before you add tags it is useful to watch the video in this ThingLink box and note the time in seconds where you will want the tags to be placed as well planning what each tag will be (text, picture, link).

tlv2

As you arrive at each moment where you want to add a tag pause the video and click ADD NEW TAG (top left). A box will open.

TLV4Here you can choose how many seconds you want the tag to stay on the screen for. You can also add a link to another site.

TLV5When you click on the blue icon (i) you can choose different colours and styles. You might choose to code these accoring to how you will use them eg i for information, ? for questions etc.

TLV6When you type into the box labelled ‘text’ another box will open. Here you can type the text you want to appear. Only the first few words will be visible on the tag in the video, until it is clicked. You can also add a picture to go with your words.

If you have chosen a link this box will be filled for you with the information from the link and still from the link.

3. Saving and editing

At any time you can click ‘save and exit’. When you want to continue to add tags look for the small label ‘edit’ below the picture.

4. Sharing

TLV7You can click on the ThingLink in the top right to provide different ways of sharing it. You can take the link and send it to others or embed the ThingLink into your own or your school’s website or blog.

Ways of using the ThingLink video

  • supporting guided reading
  • homework activities
  • guided tours
  • giving instructions

You can find a few more examples here.

Using Pic Monkey to make photo collages

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Pic Monkey is a free online photo editor available at this link.

PM1

 

You can use it to group and place photos together to make a collage of images. In order to use Pic Monkey you need to have collected the photos you want to use saved in ‘my pictures’ on your computer.

pm21. Adding the pictures to Pic Monkey.

Click on the ‘collage’ button at the top and this will initially open to allow you to choose a photo by clicking on it. The photo will appear in the list on the left. Click on ‘open photos’ to add more photos from ‘my pictures’ on your computer. Continue until you have collected all the photos you want to use in the collage.

pm32. Making the collage

Click on the collage icon in the list on the left (second down) and explore the different layouts of collage. The ones at the top are freely available and the ones lower down are only available of you pay for a subscription. When you click on the one you want it will appear in the square on the right.

pm43. Adding the photos to the collage

When you have chosen the collage layout click on the photo icon in the list on the left (at the top of the list). Click on and drag each photo to where you want it to be in the collage.

pm54. Finishing off your collage

After you have arranged your pictures in the collage you can edit the collage by changing the frame colour and edges, adding text and make other additions. To do this click on ‘edit’ in the list at the top of the picture and then use the icons in the list on the left.

 

5. Saving the collage

pm 6When the collage is complete you can save it to your computer. Click on ‘save’ and you will be given the open to save.

When you have made the collage you can use it to import into ThingLink and add tags to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design your digital self

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This summer I took part in the ThingLink Teacher Challenge. The activity in week 1 was based around introducing ourselves and our connections in the digital world. This is a useful activity to consider when meeting a new class or group or as a task to set before pupils or students begin working together.

It consisted of two stages: firstly, designing a digital avatar and secondly, uploading this to ThingLink and adding tags.

Designing a digital avatar.

There are number of tools that can be used to design a digital avatar and you can see links to a few on the ThingLink below.

I used a web tool called ‘doppel me’ to create mine. It allows the user to make choices about the appearance of their avatar. If you join and sign in you can add more detail. e:

avatarThis is mine.

There are other ways of creating the image of yourself for this activity such as those suggested in the ThingLink above, using a photo or using a collage of photos of yourself.

After choosing or creating an avatar of yourself you can go on to the next stage.

Making your ThingLink

There are some instructions on how to make a ThingLink in this blog post. For this ThingLink the focus is you as a digital user and creator. I made a list of the various ways I appear and interact digitally on social media and other tools. This is a very good opportunity to consider issues related to internet safety and information it is appropriate to make public online. Here is my  digital self ThingLink. Feel free to explore it!

How do you use digital tools to make introductions?

 

 

ThingLink

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ThingLink

website here and app – free (also ThingLink Teacher)

Account – register using your email address

ThingLink is a way of creating and sharing interactive images. You can create an account and log in or log in with Facebook.

How to make a ThingLink.

1. Collect or take some images and then upload them on the ThingLink website or app.

TL1These might be around a theme that you are teaching; say something about you or be based around an event you are organising or have taken part in. It could be one image, or you could use Pic Collage or Moldiv to make an image with several pictures.

2. When you have made the image you can then attach tags.

TL3These can be placed anywhere on the image – somewhere specific or at random depending on your aim for the use of the ThingLink. The tag pattern and colour can be changed by clicking on the tag shape in the box on the left.

Copy and past a link into the bar at the top of the box on the left. Add some text. You might do both of these or just add text. You can attach as many tags as you wish.

3. Save your ThingLink.

TL6You can then share it with other people using the link you are given and using social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

This example is just a quick one to show how a ThingLink can be made – #DrawingAugust

What can I do with ThingLink?

I made a ThingLink to share links about the First World War with some groups of students so that they could research aspects of it using links I had had chosen. With children this could be a way of focusing them on some links you know will be useful to their classroom learning or homework. You can explore this example below.

1914-18

I also made a ThingLink using photos of some field visits made with students. This ThingLink incorporated within in it links to research about outdoor learning that tutors wanted to share with the groups. With children this approach could be used to set challenges or investigations after a visit or event, or share supporting information with parents.

Outdoor Learning

This ThingLink contains links related to handwriting. This is another example of using it to share a range of sources of information – it could be useful to help staff prepare for a training session or explain issues to parents / governors.

HandwritingTL7

 

I came across ThingLinks on Sway Grantham’s blog. She uses a ThingLink to introduce herself – you can see it here

I think there could be some scope for using ThingLink to attach questions, prompts and suggestions for children. Adding a range of comprehension questions to a page from a book perhaps. If you have any useful or interesting ideas please add them using the comments section.