{"id":13555,"date":"2026-06-22T02:08:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T09:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/?p=13555"},"modified":"2026-06-22T02:08:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T09:08:43","slug":"turning-literary-research-into-interactive-digital-exhibits-with-thinglink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/turning-literary-research-into-interactive-digital-exhibits-with-thinglink\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning Literary Research into Interactive Digital Exhibits with ThingLink"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When English teacher Bayly DiPilato set out to reimagine her end-of-year assessment, she had a clear goal: replace the traditional research paper with something that demanded the same intellectual rigour but felt genuinely meaningful to her students. The result was a seven-week, multimedia research project in which students built interactive digital museum exhibits using ThingLink \u2014 weaving together historical research, literary analysis, and practical digital skills into a single, ambitious capstone experience.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atlantic County Institute of Technology (ACIT) is a vocational-technical high school in New Jersey, USA, where English teacher Bayly DiPilato integrates digital tools into her classroom. Bayly has consistently sought ways to move beyond traditional assessments, looking for platforms that offer creative flexibility without imposing unnecessary restrictions on student expression. She first discovered ThingLink over five years ago and recognised its potential to support ambitious, multimedia-rich student projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Her curriculum is built around deep literary engagement. In the third quarter, students participate in book clubs, reading texts centred on themes of identity, including Fahrenheit 451, I Am Malala, Fences, and Maus I\u2013II. This foundation sets up a more research-intensive fourth quarter, in which students shift their thematic focus to inequality and justice, drawing out the historical threads that underpin their chosen texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Search for an Alternative<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bayly wanted to replace the conventional end-of-year research paper with something that would demand the same intellectual rigour but feel more meaningful and engaging to her students. The challenge was to design an assessment that required students to conduct genuine historical research, synthesise information, and communicate their findings in a coherent and compelling way \u2014 while also developing practical digital skills relevant to the world beyond the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also needed a format that would work for a wide range of learners, including students who are less intrinsically motivated. Any project structured around a complex, multi-stage workflow risked overwhelming students if not carefully scaffolded. The tool at the centre of the project would need to be intuitive enough for 16 and 17-year-olds to pick up quickly, while still offering the depth and functionality to support a serious academic exhibit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solution: ThingLink<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bayly designed a seven-week research project culminating in student-created digital museum exhibits built in ThingLink. Each exhibit should explore a specific historical thread connected to the book that the student had studied in their book club, examined through the lens of inequality and justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project brought together several tools in a deliberate workflow. Students used Canva to design the anchor images at the heart of each exhibit, some used Zotero to organise their research and format citations, and they all used ThingLink to assemble everything into an interactive, navigable experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four examples of the students’ projects follow – please explore!<\/p>\n\n\n\n