Eclectic Technology

ThingLink is a great tool for educators, and with their free educator account that allows you to create a classroom your students may also have accounts. This post suggests four ways you might use ThingLink with your students:

1. Student Organizational Tool

2. Digital Portfolios

3. Showcasing Classroom Learning

4. Assignment and Task Organizer

More information is available in the post on these suggestions. If you are new to ThingLink this post may provide you with some new ideas. There are also three ThingLink images that have links embedded in them that you might check out, as well as one image that is by a student. You cannot see the links, but you can see how the students organized their work. If you have not used ThingLink check out their website and create an account. Then have fun playing.

This ThingLink image created by Susan Oxnevad is chock full of resources in the following categories:

* Online Learning Platforms

* Finding Information

* Understanding Information

* Using Information

* Writing Today

* SAMR Model of Tech Integration

* CCSS Vocabulary

* Build a ThingLink Classroom and The ThingLink Toolkit

* Google Forms: Create an Assignment Tracker to Collect Work

* Avatars and Internet: Using Avatars to Teach Internet Safety

There is also a ThingLink on Digital Differentiation, 2014 edition.

If ThingLink is new to you as you scroll over you will see a variety of symbols appear. Each links to a specific resource.

Check out this slideshow on ways to use ThingLink in your classroom AND create your account or upgrade your existing account to the new Premium account for educators!

ThingLink allows you to take an image or create an image and tag it with links to videos, music, text, images and more. Take the time to create an account or upgrade your existing account before the end of this year.

For additional resources on ThingLink from Cool Tools for 21st Century Learners you might want to check out this post:

http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com/2013/12/grab-your-free-thinglink-edu-upgrade.html

Are you looking for tools that provide you with the opportunity to create rich, multimedia lessons and that support differentiation? The ThingLink Challenge that has been running this summer had one week that focused on using audio as well as ThingLink (for images and/or video) to design a learning experience.

This post from Susan Oxnevad provides great resources. She has embedded a video from CAST that discussed Universal Design for Learning and has links to resources as you watch. Just pause the video and check out the link!

You can also check out "Turn it Up with Audioboo on Padlet." This page provides access to a range of ThingLink projects that have audio links. You will need to click on the title of the image, which will take you to a page with a larger view, and on the lower right hand side you should see the word Source (in red) that will take you to the actual ThingLink page.

Yesterday I posted the top choices from the American Association of School LIbrarians (AASL) on the best apps for 2014. Today they listed the top websites in the following categories:

* Media Sharing

* Digital Stories

* Manage & Organize

* Social Networking & Communication

* Content Resources

* Curriculum Collaboration

As you review the websites you will find one or more standards that are addressed by the websites.

Although I know many of the websites, there are some that are new to me that I look forward to exploring. Below are several that I have used and really like, or are ones I have checked out and will be using in the future.

Are you looking for new tools and want ideas on how to use them as well as examples and links to learn more about the tool. Check out Remix-t, a site from the University of Notre Dame, that is chock full of great ideas and resources. Although this site is geared to college teachers the resources and examples will provide you with great ideas and you will be able to modify them for your classroom. You will find in under Content Resources.

Mixed Ink is a new site to me. It allows you to create a group of students who will write together. They may comment and evaluate the submissions and each students' writing will show up in a different color. This looks like  a great site, esp. for schools that are not using Google apps.

There are many more that I will be exploring. Do you have a favorite website? Share them in the comment section and let us know why it is a favorite of yours.

ThingLink continues to add new features for educators, and one new item is the ability to create a ThingLink Channel (and you can also  create a class and have your students create ThingLink). Check out this interactive album that provides access to some posts from the ThingLink blog...and if you have not yet created a ThingLink account you might want to head over to ThingLink (http://www.thinglink.com/) and create an account.

This post presents 13 free web tools selected by "Adam Bellow, founder of EduClipper, and Steve Dembo, Online Community Manager for Discovery Education." Each has a brief explantion and provides suggestions on how to use in the classroom. Below is a list of four of the tools.

* Ipiccy

* The Noun Project

* BigHugeLabs

* Padlet

For more information on these tools plus 9 more click through to the post.