Post #3

For this week's blog, I decided to have a little fun in making my digital image and go in-depth on one of my favorite subjects... my cat! I figured this would make my blog post both more silly and personal than an infographic (although a part of me was tempted to create an infographic on how to create infographics).

In order to fully experience the Thinglink below, make sure to scroll your mouse cursor over the image so that the interactive elements show up on your screen!



As I read this week's chapter in Bridging Technology and Literacy, I became interested in mentions of Thinglink and its possible uses in the classroom. I loved the idea of interactive photos that one can scroll over to find related information or even videos and links, especially since it's something I haven't seen before online. This led me to decide to teach a little something about my feline companion by creating a Thinglink. I was disappointed to see that there was no text editor on Thinglink itself to put my cat's name on the photo, but it did only take a few minutes to add a text box in Microsoft Paint. After adding text to my photo, I used Thinglink to insert Wikipedia articles, fun facts about my kitty, and even a Youtube video right into my image.

The program is super intuitive and easy to use, so I'm confident it'll be easy to teach in the classroom. My only issue is that in order to place your Thinglink anywhere on the web other than a Thinglink group, like the portfolio blogs I ask my students to create, one must use an HTML code. Although the process of inserting HTML into a blog or a Canvas post isn't a difficult one, I know that almost none of my students will have experience working with code so teaching how to embed the Thinglink may be a stumbling block. Otherwise, I had a great time working with the program. Inserting links and text was much easier than anticipated. In fact, you can even search for a link to insert without leaving the Thinglink page.