ThingLink Teacher Challenge: Design Your Digital Self

This is the 2nd post in the ThingLink Teacher Challenge series. Participants can join the challenge at any time by signing up. After you sign up, you will receive an email invitation from ThingLink. View a list of all posts in this series at the bottom of each weekly challenge. Please visit our showcase page.

Please Tweet and share through social media with the hashtag #TLChallenge. Feel free to repost any of the challenges on your own blog and be sure to invite your friends and colleagues to participate.

Week 2: Design Your Digital Self

Objective

In this activity you will

Create an avatar.
Add your avatar to ThingLink
Add Rich Media Tags to your avatar to Design Your Digital Self.
Share and submit Your Digital Self to the ThingLink Challenge.
Get to know other participants as you explore their work.
Explore the use of a ThingLink Channel for guided learning.

Overview

In this activity you will create an interactive image to introduce Your Digital Self to other members of the ThingLink Teacher Challenge Classroom and also to anyone who views the great work we are doing. You will define yourself through through multimedia by creating tags to to whatever it is that defines your Digital Self. Revisit and add to your Digital Self as you change and grow. Use the channel to guide you through the process. Consider using the activity with students at the start of the school year.

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 serve as facilitator it in the classroom. In addition, the activity provides teachers with the opportunity to remind students about protecting their identities when publishing digital work. With access to a web full of resources and the opportunity to create, this activity is built for success.

Steps at a Glance:

Note: Create this activity in your regular teacher account. There is no need to create it in your ThingLink Challenge Classroom this time.

Create an avatar.
Add your avatar to ThingLink
Add Rich Media Tags to your avatar to Design Your Digital Self.
Share and submit Your Digital Self to the ThingLink Challenge.
Get to know other participants as you explore their work.
Explore the use of a ThingLink Channel for guided learning.

Explore this Channel of Interactive Resources to Guide Your Learning

Showcase of Examples

Explore this channel of images created by participants and watch it grow!

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.