Article by ASC Office of Distance Education Instructional Designer, Jessica Henderson
What Is ThingLink?
As of September 2022, the College of Arts and Sciences has acquired organizational accounts to ThingLink for all faculty, staff, and students. ThingLink is an educational technology that allows users to add annotations, links, and questions to images and videos making them more interactive and, in turn, more engaging. In addition, the platform provides users with the ability to create and explore real-world environments through virtual walk-throughs and tours that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. See the virtual tour of Orton Hall, created with ThingLink, here.
ThingLink has been approved for use in both Carmen and Scarlet courses and contains a number of built-in accessibility features, helping content creators ensure that all learners and viewers can fully participate in the learning experience.
For a brief overview about the tool and how users interact with content created in ThingLink, as well as more about its key benefits and why the ASC Office of Distance Education pursued access to this tool for faculty and staff, take a look at the short video introduction below.
For more examples and inspiration for how you might utilize ThingLink in your own courses, be sure to explore the examples below. To begin:
- Click the animated icon associated with the media type that you would like to explore.
- After opening the tag, use the Proceed button and back arrow in the top-right corner of the pop-up window to navigate between content examples.
Where Can I Learn More?
On December 5, 2022, the ASC Office of Distance Education hosted an interactive workshop for instructors wishing to learn more about Thinglink. View the recording of this workshop here.
The Office of Distance Education instructional design team has created a comprehensive ThingLink training resource in Carmen with information about how to get started with ThingLink. The resource includes information about how to create and navigate your account, the basic elements of content creation in ThingLink, advanced content creation resources, and a library of ASC examples that can be used as templates or for inspiration, along with an additional resource list.
If you would like to be added to the ThingLink training resource, please fill out our ThingLink Faculty and Staff Training Carmen course request form.
If you are planning to use this tool, please include the following statement in your Carmen course and syllabus:
"This course requires the use of a tool called ThingLink. If you encounter an issue with access to this tool, please contact [instructor name] at their name.#@osu.edu email address and ascode@osu.edu. Accommodation and assistance will be arranged for you as appropriate free from penalty."