ThingLink for Interactive Images

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This week, we are sharing a great resource for making and sharing interactive images.

To get started, go to: http://www.thinglink.com

You will need to register for a free account to be able to edit and create new images.

Once you register, you will be taken to your "stream" page. 

Your stream page contains all of the images you have "touched" and any images created by people you follow. To save an image to this website for later, you need to touch it. You can also follow the creator to automatically see all images that person creates.

On the top left corner of the page, you have the ability to see your images "Me", browse for new images by keyword "Browse", or create new interactive images by clicking "Create."

I am going to create a new image.

First you have to upload your image. ThinkLink allows you to import photos directly from Facebook, Flickr, or any other website by copying the image URL. You can also upload a picture from your computer or media storage.

Once you upload your photo, it will open in a box like this:

I have uploaded my photo. Now I need to give my photo a title and start adding "tags" to make it interactive.  A tag is a link anywhere on the image to a website, video, or text resource. You can search for content to tag on the left side of the screen. Click anywhere on the image to add a tag.

This is what my photo looks like as I am adding tags. You will need to click on the green save button to save each tag and the image when you are finished. You can also edit the sharing settings to allow anyone to edit the tags, this is great for collaboration projects.

Here is what the final product looks like:

I can edit my image, as well as share it using social media, email, or embed the image within a blog or website. You can see the statistics for the image, how many times it has been viewed or touched, as well as delete the image if desired.

There are thousands of images available by browsing so before creating a new image, I would suggest searching to see if an image already exists. ThingLink is a great resource as well as creative project idea for your students. I can imagine a wonderful virtual gallery of interactive images about a particular subject or topic of interest.