ThinkLink...ThingLing...ThingLink!

Anyone who uses the Windows Spotlight feature for their lock screen on a Windows 10 computer will instantly recognize ThingLink. It may not be the easiest name to pronounce, but what it lacks in pronunciation it makes up for in potential.

According to their website, ThingLink is a product identification tool that makes it easy to add clickable tags to any image on the web and share the tagged images on social networks. ThingLink also claims to be the leading provider of image and video interaction tools in the classroom.

My very first Thinglink creation on the topic of copyright

My actual first ThingLink image

I am just now discovering ThingLink; however, it’s been around for a decade, which is an eternity when it comes to online software applications. And it seems to have carved out a niche in the image tagging market as I could not find much in the way of competitor tools. Genially seems to be the closest competitor without digging too deep into it. (If you’ve used this application, let me know about your experience in the comments)

Anyway, back to ThingLink. Behind the scenes, ThingLink runs on JavaScript to serve up rich media content (images, video, etc.) on top of an online image. This additional content appears when viewers move their mouse over tagged areas of the image. This seems like such a simple concept, but it has huge potential, because an infinite amount of additional resources could be connected to that single image. This technology increases engagement through interactivity.  It’s no longer just t a static one-dimensional image, but a portal to an endless world of content.

Last week I wrote about digital content curation and how this practice distills the world wide web down into its best parts. ThinkLink has a similar value proposition and allows you to easily cull materials from all over and present them in an engaging fashion. I can see this as a very useful tool in the classroom and could really apply to any subject matter. Students could find a picture, or be assigned a picture for inspiration and from that create an interactive presentation into whatever theme it is. They could curate using existing media found online, or it could be used to showcase their own original content that has been uploaded or created digitally. ThingLink also provides the ability for teachers to organize their students into groups to make managing and sharing easier. It even allows students to add comments to images created by classmates. With the advent of rich media tagging technology of applications like ThingLink, glue sticks, scissors and construction paper may soon be a thing of the past!