Create interactive learning experiences for all in your school community.

Kyla Ball May 25, 2021

The interactive learning experience

Luke Edwards recently wrote in Tech and Learning, “ThingLink is a powerful way to use technology to make education more engaging. It does this by allowing teachers to turn any image, video, or 360-degree VR shot into a learning experience.”  A good summary of what the tool allows users to do, but with the right team, students, or educators it can be so much more!

ThingLink quickly and simply allows you to take base media (images, videos, 360 media and 3D models) and add tags, links, and other resources to create a dynamic interactive experience that is easily shared with your learners. By adding multimedia tags, you encourage an active learning process. Users engage with the media, drawing more detail from it, fundamentally changing the way that the visual media can be used to teach and convey ideas. The power of ThingLink is its capacity to pull in and combine countless types of rich media resources and put the power of design and storytelling in the hands of its users.

Benefits for every educational user

ThingLink is designed to support all educational users – from teachers to administrators to students – in developing projects which they can edit, collaborate on, share and receive feedback; ultimately they can iterate fearlessly.   

• Teachers can develop learning materials, classroom calendars, projects, virtual field trips and countless other experiences to communicate ideas and concepts to students
• Students can use ThingLink to develop their digital and media skills, presentations, tours, resumes and other learning projects in a truly digital environment
• Administrative staff can effectively communicate complex ideas or processes, as well as market events, facilities, and the school to a broader audience such as parents and carers.

What is interactive learning with ThingLink?

In a world of static content and decreased attention spans, new and interactive media allows you to maximise student engagement. ThingLink allows users to include images, audio, video, and 360 content into one layered experience that is proven to make any subject matter more engaging. We have also embedded Microsoft Immersive Reader for better accessibility and language access for all users. This design puts the power in the hands of our creators to develop experiences for all your users.  With ThingLink you go beyond creating just another presentation or infographic into creating truly immersive experiences. 

Our Worldwide Education Community

ThingLink is now used by millions of educators globally, from pre-k through high school, higher education right through to the workforce. As this ThingLink education community grows and matures we have been working alongside you to advance our solutions in line with your needs.

This commitment to supporting our education community has created several advancements as well as heavily influencing our future roadmap. From LTI and LMS integration to virtual tours, forms, and branching functionality in our Immersive Course Creator, we have designed ThingLink to allow users to create impactful learning experiences from individual assets to entire study units. Educators can also share their designs for collaborative learning – whether that’s across the hall or across the globe. We are proud of the way our education community has grown and turned millions of pictures, videos, or 360-degree VR shots into inspirational learning experiences.

Teacher Astrid Hulsebosch’s ThingLink Bitmoji Virtual Theology Classroom

Our flexible plans for education users

ThingLink was designed to flexibly support all users and provide learning designers and educators with the ability to try the tool for free. Free is always the starting point for ThingLink and you can do a lot with a free 60 Day trial licence. 

However we’d like to show what more you can do with paid ThingLink accounts.   

Our most cost-effective plan is an individual teacher plan, the Teacher License. This plan is designed specifically for Elementary School, Middle School and High School teachers who want to do more with their students and share resources with a wider audience. This is a cost-effective and versatile option for the teacher that does not yet have organisation-wide buy-in but loves using ThingLink to create learning activities.

Our organizational plans are designed for schools or districts that want to utilize ThingLink across the organization. These licenses support multiple ThingLink users to create, share and collaborate in real-time with others in the school or district. This is ideal for creating school-based communications, lesson plans, portfolios, as well as course resources. They are priced according to size of school and have a corresponding number of teacher and student seats depending on school size. 

We provide School license users with unlimited views and uploads, as well as enhanced support. For our friends in the administrative office, we have designed these plans with your concerns in mind. Our administrative console and integrations allow you to easily address your roster changes. Additionally, these plans include enhanced security features and administrative roles to help manage accounts and content on ThingLink as well as integrate via SSO into your school’s learning environment.

Providing student accounts allows your students to create their own ThingLinks as part of a project, class or small group. It also gives the teacher the ability to track user data on users, creations, and the performance of individual assets.  

All school licences have full access to Scenario Builder, ThingLink’s powerful yet super-easy tool for creating immersive scenarios. Providing infinite possibilities for students to practise problem-solving skills, critical thinking skills and decision making through role-playing and scenario testing in a safe environment, these are ideal teaching methods to prepare learners to safely test skills and knowledge before applying them in the real world.

How can interactive learning help students?

ThingLink is a powerful tool to make learning content captivating. ThingLink permits creators to easily make layered digital experiences with text, video, images, 3D and 360 media – and quickly share those assets with students, staff, and parents. ThingLink is also designed to enable creators to engage their audience wherever they are, whether it be on a Chromebook, a traditional desktop, a tablet, a smartphone or even a VR headset. E-learning tools like ThingLink can make education more accessible and engaging for learners – increasing student motivation and knowledge retention in a way that passive learning cannot. Our versatility and design makes creating interactive learning activities and immersive environments as easy as creating a slideshow – a solution that really democratizes education.