Lesson at a glance

Students choose one first-time visitor and guide that person through three stops: arrive, find, and get help or continue. The map begins as a flat image, then gains tags that reveal information when the visitor needs it.

Before students open ThingLink

1. Confirm that students can create inside the district ThingLink group or class. Opening a public example does not prove that student creation access is ready.
2. Choose the sharing route students will use. Test it in Student View or in a browser where you are not signed in as the creator.
3. Open the teacher deck, class example, tutorial, and one new blank image project.
4. Prepare approved background options for students who should not photograph or map a real space.
5. Set the privacy boundary before students collect media. Use public, composite, fictional, or teacher-approved places.

Do not ask students to create personal teacher classes. Use the access route supplied by your school or district.

Day 1: Teach, analyze, plan

1. Start with the visitor. Ask students to remember a first visit when they did not know where to go. What information would have helped?
2. Compare real maps. Use the park, museum, and transit maps in the deck. Name each audience and the job each map performs.
3. Teach background plus tag. The background gives the big picture. A tag supplies one detail, choice, source, or next step at the point where the visitor needs it.
4. Open the class example. Let students predict what a tag will reveal from its placement and title before opening it.
5. Assign the mission constraint. One visitor, one mission, and three stops: arrive, find, and get help or continue.
6. Conference on purpose. Approve the visitor and mission before students collect media or build tags.

Day 2: Model, build, test

1. Model one tag from start to preview. Narrate the design decision: placement, title, information format, source credit, and accessibility.
2. Keep the production target small. One readable background and at least three purposeful tags are enough for this first build.
3. Check accessibility at the point of use. Students add background alt text, alt text for meaningful images, captions or a transcript for audio and video, concise titles, and a logical tag order.
4. Use a no-coaching viewer test. The partner tries to arrive, find the destination, and get help or continue. The creator watches without explaining.
5. Require one revision. Students fix one hesitation, unclear title, blocked path, broken link, or missing source.
6. Submit the audience link. Students use the share setting you assigned, test the link, and submit it in Canvas.

What to look for

• The same named visitor and mission guide every design choice.
• The map includes arrive, find, and get help or continue.
• Tag titles tell the visitor what they found. “Click here” does not count as a descriptive title.
• Text, media, or links add useful information instead of repeating the background.
• Sources and accessible alternatives are present.
• The final link opens for the intended viewer, not only for the creator.

If creation access is not ready

Do not send students to make unsupported personal accounts. Keep the learning target and run the planning and viewer-test work while you resolve access.

• Students finish the background and three-tag plan.
• Build one class scene together and let teams propose tag placement, titles, media, and next steps.
• Use the completed plan as the bridge into the individual build when access is restored.

Teacher resources

The deck teaches the whole sequence for projection. The student Canvas page is the independent and absence route.