{"id":3235,"date":"2020-06-02T05:07:15","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T09:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tlsrv.net\/thinglink-launches-first-microsoft-education-centre-course\/"},"modified":"2023-11-10T14:49:51","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T14:49:51","slug":"thinglink-launches-first-microsoft-education-centre-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/thinglink-launches-first-microsoft-education-centre-course\/","title":{"rendered":"ThingLink launches a MEC course on creating visual learning materials for blended learning"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"line-height: 1.5; text-align: left;\"><strong>To help educators overcome some of the practical challenges related to blended learning environments, ThingLink launches a new course in the Microsoft Education Centre called &#8220;Creating Visual Learning Materials&#8221;.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"line-height: 1.5; text-align: left;\">In this <a href=\"https:\/\/education.microsoft.com\/en-us\/course\/052154c4\/overview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">beginner-level introductory course<\/a> aimed at teachers and education professionals, educators will learn how they can create visual learning materials to engage their students and publish to school communities to keep connected.<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 1.5; text-align: left;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 200px; display: block; margin: 0px auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn2.hubspot.net\/hubfs\/603436\/Thinglink.png\" alt=\"Thinglink\" width=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 1.5; text-align: left;\"><!--more--><i><\/i><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Creating Visual Learning Materials\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/education.microsoft.com\/en-us\/course\/052154c4\/overview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">course<\/a> consists of eight modules each comprising an interactive tutorial video taking educators through a journey to create interactive learning assets and explore the possibilities for their learning and teaching.<\/p>\n<p>The modules are followed by a simple multiple choice quiz, and on completion educators will receive ThingLink&#8217;s Microsoft Education Center Digital Badge and by completing a form (when shipping allows) an exclusive ThingLink lanyard and a wooden medal.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Three examples of projects you can create after taking the course<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><i>\u201cWe have recently seen a surge in inspiring examples from educators who use ThingLink to\u00a0overcome some of the practical challenges related to working remotely, including transitioning students to a new school and keeping them engaged and connected. This course shows\u00a0how teachers and staff can easily create tours to support school transitions as well as choice\u00a0boards and virtual classrooms to encourage engagement and connecting with students.\u201d \u00a0&#8211; Ulla-Maaria Koivula, Founder &amp; CEO, ThingLink<\/i><\/p>\n<h2><strong>1. A virtual school experience for connecting with students<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;As a result of school closure due to Coronavirus, we wanted to ensure that pupils still felt a sense of belonging to the school. We wanted to create a virtual version of our school that pupils could visit on demand to pick up video and audio messages from their teachers and other staff to feel part of the Penybont school family&#8221;. <em>&#8211;\u00a0Robbie Owen, Headteacher from Penybont Primary School, Bridgend, Wales, United Kingdom.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin: 0px auto; display: block;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/mediacard\/1304350640847192065\" width=\"840\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-original-width=\"640\" data-original-height=\"360\" data-service=\"cdn.thinglink\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><em><i>360 image tour: Click the icons to explore Penybont Primary and discover the messages from the teachers in the classrooms<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n<h2>2. A choice board for visualizing distance learning tasks and resources<\/h2>\n<p>This choice board was created by Lorrie Salome from Austin Independent School District in Texas to weave together a wealth of resources and simplify the visual presentation of these for students, their parents and carers. <a href=\"\/blog\/home-learning-designs-to-reduce-confusion-and-increase-engagement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">More of this example in this post.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><i><strong><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin: 0px auto; display: block;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/card\/1305206614172631041\" width=\"840\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-original-width=\"1920\" data-original-height=\"1080\" data-service=\"cdn.thinglink\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/cdn.thinglink.me\/jse\/responsive.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/cdn.thinglink.me\/jse\/responsive.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/cdn.thinglink.me\/jse\/responsive.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><i>Image: Click the icons to explore Lorrie\u2019s\u00a0 playful home learning design<\/i><\/p>\n<h2>3. Virtual classrooms with text, audio, and video instructions<\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-size: 20px;\">Amanda Pickard, a primary teacher and MIEExpert from South Ayrshire in Scotland created this virtual classroom to make home learning more simple and engaging, and even enlisted the help of her trusty pooch to introduce tasks related to building sentences for her young learners. Explore the number tags to hear directly from Amanda and Travis!<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 20px;\"><i><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin: 0px auto; display: block;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/card\/1318637995301011458\" width=\"768\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-original-width=\"2880\" data-original-height=\"1800\" data-service=\"cdn.thinglink\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><i>Image: Click the icons to explore Amanda&#8217;s classroom with building sentence tasks for little learners<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.5;\">We hope these examples have given you new ideas for how to use ThingLink to engage and support your students in a blended learning situation. To learn details about how to create your own visual learning materials today, sign up to the <a href=\"https:\/\/education.microsoft.com\/en-us\/course\/052154c4\/overview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ThingLink course<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/education.microsoft.com\/en-us\" rel=\" noopener\">Microsoft Education Centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you do not yet have a ThingLink account, get started today by going to <a href=\"http:\/\/thinglink.com\/edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">thinglink.com\/edu<\/a>\u00a0or Microsoft Teams app search and create your free teacher account.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>About ThingLink\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>ThingLink is a visual learning solution for schools and workplaces. You can use it to bring images, video and 360-degree virtual tours to life with further information. This can include any combination of voice, text, and video notes, as well embedded 3rd party tools and web resources such as Microsoft Forms. \u00a0Educators can use it to create engaging, accessible \u00a0learning materials in multiple languages, and students can use it to document projects and assignments at home. ThingLink is fully integrated with Microsoft Teams, providing opportunities to making the real world accessible via Teams Chats and Channels.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on partnerships, school organization accounts or professional development options, please contact me at <a href=\"mailto:Louise@thinglink.com\">Louise@thinglink.com.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To help educators overcome some of the practical challenges related to blended learning environments, ThingLink launches a new course in the Microsoft Education&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[454],"tags":[179,200,209,177,363,362,161,255,210,357,239],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3235"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8857,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3235\/revisions\/8857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinglink.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}