ThingLink: Consumer and Community Health

     I used ThingLink in order to explore several healthcare services within the community. On each building or vehicle, I defined their purpose and an instance in which their service would be used. I decided to include some of the better known services since those would be the ones that my students would be more familiar with. I can show this to my class as an initial introduction to health services. Then, if I want to, I can have each of them create a ThingLink for a variety of assignments. They can either create one to talk about some less common services within the community or to go more in depth on one of the services that I covered. A student might create a ThingLink that has a picture of a hospital room and then explain what some of the different medical supplies are for.
     I liked the easy accessibility of the information. Instead of having to click on a link that would take me to a different page, I could roll my mouse over a link and learn about the health service. I like that it is a kind of interactive learning and I think that will help some of my students in the future. I liked how easy it was to add pictures and text to the links. I did not like that it took quite a bit of time to put together all of the links and the information to go with them. It will have to be something that I use when I have a bit more time to plan it out.
      My students can use this tool to describe environments (as a science standard), including labeling the living and nonliving organisms within it. They can either draw pictures and upload them (as I did), or download pictures from the internet to create the project on. They can also use this tool to explore the classroom during the summer, before class has started.

Standards:
ISTE: Knowledge Constructor. "I critically select, evaluate and synthesize digital resources into a collection that reflects my learning and builds my knowledge".
EdTech: Standard 8, "Use technology resources (e.g., calculators, data collection probes, videos, educational software) for problem-solving, self-directed learning, an extended learning activities. (5, 6)".
UEN Content: Health Education--Standard 7 Objective 3, "Summarize the role of health services in the community. a. List various health services. b. Define the role of each service. c. Identify situations in which the health services can or should be accessed."