Design Your Digital Self

We are kicking off the ThingLink Summer Challenge #TLChallenge with a fun activity designed to help educators get started using ThingLink EDU. Explore the use of rich media tags to tell your professional story and introduce yourself  as you Design Your Digital Self.

About the Teacher Summer Teacher Challenge

This free, online, self-paced professional development is designed for busy educators who want to build a professional learning network and have fun learning! We have nearly 400 educators from 20+ countries signed up to participate.

To fully participate in the Teacher Challenge activities you will need to sign up to join our group. This will provide you with a 3 month free trial of EDU Premium for use during the Teacher Challenge so you can fully explore the powerful possibilities of using ThingLink for teaching and learning.

Design Your Digital Self Rationale

To engage students in learning, it's important to help them make connections to their own world. This classroom kick off activity sets the tone for making those personal connections . The activity can also be very useful for gauging students' problem-solving and research skills as you facilitate a similar activity in the classroom. This activity provides teachers with the great opportunity to address Internet safety and digital citizenship at the start of the year and the avatar can continue to remind students to protect their identities while online.

Steps at a Glance

1. Create an avatar or use an existing avatar you have.
2. Upload your avatar to ThingLink
3. Add Rich Media Tags to your avatar to Design Your Digital Self.
4. Add your annotated avatar to the channel, Design Your Digital Self by using the Post button found on the right side of an interactive image.
5. Get to know other participants as you explore their work.

Get Interactive Directions

Classroom Connections and Modifications

• Take advantage of the teachable moment and combine this activity with an Internet Safety lesson to help students distinguish between personal and private information when sharing on the web.
• Introduce the activity at the start of the school year in place of a traditional getting to know you activity and encourage students to add tags as they learn, change and grow throughout the year.
• Create a class channel of student digital selvess for use as an introduction to another classroom when collaborating.
• Adapt the activity to fit into your curriculum and use it throughout the year as a place for students to showcase their growth and progress in a particular area.
• Ask students to create a channel of their own to track their progress towards specific goals, adding tags to highlight accomplishments throughout the year.

Get Started

1. Get Started with the ThingLink Teacher Challenge
2. Watch Video: Create a ThingLink for EDU

Additional Help and Support

• Create an Avatar
• Adjust Image Size
• ThingLink Help Center
• Build a ThingLink Classroom
• Rich Media Tags

Join Us

There's still time to join us for this flexible summer learning adventure. All you have to do is sign up. After you sign up, you will receive an email with the invite code to join our district organization group named ThingLink Teacher Challenge. This will allow you to access our shared workspace. This will also give you access to the EDU Premium trial for use during the Teacher Challenge.This will allow us to share the invite code so you can join our district organization group and access the shared workspace. This will also give you access to the EDU Premium trial offered through this challenge.

We hope you will join us for this fun filled and excited, self-paced professional learning opportunity. Questions? Please email Susan@thinglink.com.

 

All Teacher Challenge Activities

Get Started

3 Reasons to Take the Next ThingLink Teacher Challenge

ThingLink Teacher Challenge Launched at #ISTE2015

Week 1 

Design Your Digital Self

Meet the ThingLink Teacher Challenge Participants

Week 2 

Collect and Curate Incredible Content

Week 3 

Create a Collaborative Student Project

Unpacking Google Apps for the Teacher Challenge

Quick Tips

Create a ThingLink for EDU

Convert a ThingLink Account to EDU

Post a ThingLink to a Channel

Adjust Image Size

Rich Media Tags

Teachers / Schools / Districts

Grab a ThingLink Account for Your School or District

Build Your ThingLink Classroom

Next Week's Challenge

Curate Incredible Content Created by Collegues