MTI562 - Week 3 & New Tools

I am excited to try many of the tools I learned about this week in the 15 tools in 15 min. video and reading material.  I have heard and used about half of the tools mentioned but was excited (as I always am) to learn new ways to engage my students and discover new apps I can use to distribute information to my students as well.

The first tool I tried was Thinglink.  While I have had an account for about a year I never created anything until now.  I envision so many ways I can use this tool in my classes next year.  The feature that allows editing provides many student engagement, sharing/collaboration possibilities.  Some that I will explore next school year will be: student introductions, labeling parts of computer, Windows Desktop or Word Document Screen - the possibilities seem endless.

Here is a ThingLink Interactive Image I created for students to get a better understanding of some computer parts and terms.


Here is another Thinklink created to share a little bit about myself. I will have my students use Thinglink to share information about themselves at beginning of the semester. I used a website called PhotoCollage.net to create the collage of images. Then imported the collage into Thinglink.



PhotoCollage.net is a great, easy to use online photo collage editor. Photos can be saved to your computer (several different image formats), shared via social and other options as well. There are many templates and design options to choose from, such as adding borders, text, backgrounds and more. In addition, you do not have to create an account to use the site. Check it out if you get a chance! I am going to try a few more tools today and will update this post as I do.