ThingLink for Interactive Books

#1 What is ThingLink?
ThingLink is a free user-friendly digital tool that allows us to create and share interactive images. All can be done effortlessly and quickly and one can turn any static image into a multimedia rich interactive graphic by adding video, other images, audio, links to different sources...
In addition to the coloured dots / nubbins, ThingLink now has more graphic icons - we can therefore choose the one that best suits our purpose when tagging images.

#2 ThingLink in the Classroom
Its uses in the classroom are limitless. We can use it for any subject, any grade! Depending on our goals, we can tag the information ourselves or use it as a collaborative tool and ask our students to add /tag info. I've used it before with maps, with famous paintings as you can read here; I've used it with students for introductions as well as to introduce myself.

#3 Using ThingLink for Reading Suggestions
An interesting way of using this innovative and flexible tool in the classroom is also for Reading recommendations and suggestions. Bring books to life by collecting resources, challenging students / potential readers with questions, highlighting important info, presenting the author!
"Gone Girl" is a book I've finished reading recently and absolutely loved it. By then I wrote a short review here (please scroll down as there are already over 100 books!) and once the movie is going to premiere in the beginning of October, I thought about recommending it beforehand :) Here it is:

I'd be very glad to hear from you! Thanks :)
Many thanks to Susan Oxnevad for the #TLChallenge 

WELCOME!

On July 1st 2013 Croatia will become the 28th EU member state. What a great opportunity for a geography and history lesson! What a great lesson on tolerance, respect and acceptance!
Let me share with you a very short video with some info on stunning Croatia:



Now, a challenge for all visitors: why don't you pin a European Union country and some info on it? It can be a link to a song, a pic, whatever you wish :)

Another video now by EU commissioners who so kindly welcome Croatia into the EU in their mother tongue:

A warm welcome to all Croatians  :)

Making images interactive

thinglink.com

Thinglink is definitely one of my favourite tools at the moment. I've already used it in my classes and in teacher training courses and here are some of the reasons why I'm so excited about it:
- it's a neat tool for creating interactive and collaborative images in our classroom or as a homework task;
- we / collaborators can tag images with any content (including videos, sounds and music from different sources) and then we can also share it (by email, in Facebook, Twitter, blog...);
- the chosen images come alive not only with what you can tag but also by adding colourful pins.
This school year I'm teaching a Tourism and Hospitality class and as far as possible I've been trying to develop materials that can somehow be useful to them or even to the community. I took pics in Soure and produced this video and, in class, I shared this Thinglink  (below) - a  map of Soure and its twelve civil parishes - so that learners could tag with relevant content. Here is the result - simple but effective!


Now, how is it done? Again, simple!
1st register at http://www.thinglink.com/
2nd click "Create" and choose an image - upload from hard-drive, import from Facebook or public Flickr images, or enter a link to an image on the web;
3rd In Edit give your image a title and set permissions
4th Share the image - you'll get a link to share with sts and / or get the embed code and paste it into a blog post.
Here is another one I've just created - this time to practise the Present Continuous - and open for all to add tags - so feel free to tag if you wish to do so.